A Fateful Meeting



“So what’s our mission supposed to be today?” Eugene asked his teammates as the three of them walked around the town. As usual, he had his dark colored jacket and his two swords, Misroth’s Wrath and the Sword of the Night Sky, on his back along with another back up sword which looked more like a light saber handle at his waist.

“Well, it’s nothing unusual, we’re just going to take down another dark guild.” Shana said in response. The female sniper had her large anti-material sniper rifle on her back, something that scared the heck out of people nearby them as well as her spirit keys at her waist. “And shouldn’t I be somewhere far so I can you know, snipe?” She asked a valid question as she usually was the long range fighter.

“We want to cause as little damage as we can.” Eugene said in response, remembering what an anti-material rifle could do. “A normal one without magic could already take down fully armored tanks. It’s frightening to think of what would happen if it were to be powered up with magic and all that.” The Dragon Slayer still couldn’t believe this girl was also able to add what was practically a machine gun function to this destructive weapon. It was then they saw a certain shop.

"I need to buy some things from here." Shana said pointing to the store in question.

"Okay then, let's meet up in a few hours since our mission doesn't start until there are less people around." Eugene said before they parted ways. Eugene decided to go to the nearby lake just outside of town to relax and possibly take a nap.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in a nearby forest....

A fair maiden dressed in white and red walks down a path, reading from a piece of paper: a magic quest. She was personally hired, even though she left Sabertooth months ago, to carry out this quest - to find and capture a notorious criminal who can be identified by his black hair, black clothes and his sword.

"Ughhhh..how am I meant to find a guy like that, in a HUGE PLACE LIKE THIS?!", her raised voice echoed rather comically. The girl sighs and looks up at the warm rays of sun peeking through the canopies above her as she walks, smiling at the feeling of the forest's peaceful aura.

The girl's eyes sparked with delight, and she entered a run, panting as she does. In a minute or so, she reaches a beautiful, shining lake - undisturbed by even the tiniest of fish, just sitting there basking in the sun. "Wow..beautiful! Definitely gonna take a break and cool off here.", the woman said as she stripped down into a swimsuit and stepped into the shallow shore of the lake and sat down. As she leans back on her hands and the ends of her long hair dip the lake's surface, she sighs in utter relaxation. "Nothing wrong with a girl taking a pamper break before fighting some bad guy, right? Thought so.", she spoke gleefully as she closed her eyes to soak in the warmth of the mid-day sun and the calming coolness of the lake submerging her hands and legs.

Just as Eugene was about to doze off, he noticed someone coming. She seemed familiar. When she  reached the lake and was in closer proxim ity to Eugene, she looked like Shana except with a different hair color. It seemed that she didn't notice him, not that it wasn't expected as that commonly happened even among those he was close with. He just didn't have such a great presence outside of battle. What shocked him was that the girl he thought was Shana started stripping down to a swimsuit, something that would be unusual for the sniper girl. He got up as the girl began to play around in the water and walked over to her. "This certainly is a change for you Shana." He called out to the girl still thinking that she was his guildmate. "Normally, you're not so willing to put on a swimsuit. And when did you dye your hair?"

Upon hearing a boy's voice, her eyes snapped open, startled. (THOUGHT): "Wait a minute.. Black hair, black clothes, a sword.... *Gasp* He's the target..!!". The woman immediately rose to her feet, not caring that she's in a bikini, requipping a sword into her hand, a rather intimidating one too - The Bloodsword. She leaps at the man immediately while speaking out, "So you're the guy I need to capture, huh? Surrender!!", she yelled out as she swiped her sword for the male's chest,"PENTRAGAM SWORD!!". Moving towards the man with her sword slashing in the form of a five-pointed star.

"Panzer!" Eugene exclaimed as he activated a magic in his Replicards, Fortification Magic. The sword hit it's mark but it didn't do any damage nor even make him budge. The attack didn't really faze him itself but the person he thought was a guildmate attacking him did shock him a little. "Geez, are you trying to kill me?" He said wondering what was going on. "And I thought you were terrible with a sword. Why are you using one?" He then began to wonder how to deal with this situation. "Well, if it's a fight you want, I'll give you one." He said as he drew his Sword of the Night Sky. "Looks like I can't go easy though." He quietly said to himself. as he got into a stance.



"Stop acting like you know me, scum! I'm not this 'Shana' person.", the girl yelled out, "Is that how you distract your victims? Pretending you're their friend and then striking them down when it's in full effect? That's low, you sicken me, Dark Rider!". "THUNDERING KATANA!!", the girl cried out as lightning rattled out of the sky and into her sword as she swing it in an overhead attack down upon the man, closing the distance between her and him with amazing speed.

"Looks like I goofed here." Eugene said to himself as he activated another magic. In the next instant, it would appear to the girl that Eugene vanished into thin air as the male was now above her. "Forest Dragon's Spiral Roar!" Eugene exclaimed before shooting a beam of concetrated magic energy downward towards the girl. He knew he couldn't go easy but he couldn't go all out either. The girl only had a bikini to protect her for crying out loud.

The attack impacts, and after the smoke clears...she's gone! The only thing where she was is rippled water and a few, disturbed chunks of the lakebed that have been churned up by the Roar. All is silent for a few seconds, before she reappears  right in front  Eugene -- using Teleportation Magic -- fully dressed, swinging the front of her free fist into his face to send him backwards, with a grunt of effort.

"Martial arts isn't really your thing huh?" Eugene said as he immediately got back into a fighting stance. "Your punch doesn't have much power. Well, at least you're not wearing a bikini anymore. It was getting awkward fighting you while you were in that." He then struck the ground. "Forest Dragon's Cactus Machine Gun!" He exclaimed, summoning several cacti in all directions around the girl. The cacti then began to shoot at her. ''I know she can teleport so I'll use this to calculate where she would most likely appear. ''He thought to himself while getting his Fortification Magic ready. He could use it to trap her depending on what she did.

"You clearly don't know me at all, if you think fighting isn't my strong suit, and that that was my full strength.", she retorted as she swung her arms out in front of her, her fingertips glowing with a bright golden energy as she sent her sword back into her storage domain, "HEAVEN'S GATE!", she yelled out as she brought her arms out to a complete, straight line and glowed with golden energy. The energy forms a large barricade pulsating with rays of warm, white light around her, and she smirks at Eugene a few metres away from her. "Your move, bucko."

"Very well then." Eugene said not realy fazed as he has faced against those with similar magic many times, espeically against a powerful one named Daichi. He then snapped his fingers and the girl's clothing hardened due to Eugene's Fortification Magic. "I might not be able to use that on your body itself but I can use it on your clothes to make you unabel to move and keep you at your position." He said nonchalantly. "And now, Magic Channeling." Eugene said using another magic to drain her magic energy and transfer it to him..

"Why you...bastard!! Aa-aarghh!!", she cried out in discomfort and some pain as she is encased and slowly drained. "Seems I'll need to activate phase two... HEAVEN'S GATE, OPEN AND SHOW HIM THE BRILLIANT LIGHT!!", upon that command, the barrier around her pulses wildly and explodes with an extreme, violent force - obliterating the cacti as it hurdles towards Eugene, tearing apart the ground as it goes.

"You're not very good at tactics either I presume?" Eugene said with his own little smile as he got ready another spell. "Forest Dragon's Mirror Tree!" Eugene exclaimed as he summoned out a large tree which absorbed the magic attack coming at him and then sent it back with his own magic energy added on. The girl would still not be able to move. Although the Fortification spell would lessen the physical damage where the clothes were. It would not stop the power of the impact.

The girl simply chuckles. Her eyes turn white, and her body glows dimly for a few seconds. Inches before she is hit, she disappears in a poof of smoke...and a small bird flies out of where the fortified clothes once were, chirping mockingly. The bird returns to the form of a girl very high in the air, silhouetted by the gazing sun. "Velocity..." The girl says appears almost everywhere at once around Eugene as her sword glows pink.

"..FURY!", she yells out as she initiates the attack, speed-slicing him from every direction and angle possible as a simple blur before disappearing entirely.

"Geez, it seems she's forgotten that I still had Fortification Magic in effect." Eugene said as the girl began to slash at him at unbelievable speeds although it didn't really have any effect. He checked the mental time in his head to determine the amount of time left before he had to reactivate it. The girl at this point had disappeared but fortunately, Dragon Slayers have an awesome sense of smell so he used his nose to determine the girl's location. He knew though that it wouldn't do much for him to launch an attack so he decided to make it harder for her to move. He hit the groud with his palm and summoned several plants which squirted large amounts of sap to make the area difficult to move in. "And keep your clothes on! Why are you fighting naked?" Eugene exclaimed knowing how the girl's clothes were still stuck nearby.

"Who says I'm naked right now?", the girl's almost-disembodied, distorted voice came from multiple directions at once. She came to a stop right behind him with a new outfit, with a puzzled look rather than attacking Eugene. "Wait a minute...the job said the guy only had Darkness Magic..you just used Fortification... EEK! YOU'RE NOT HIM!!", she squeaked as she came to realisation.

"So that's what it was." Eugene said in response, staying relatively calm about all of this. "You had mistaken me for some Dark Mage or something. It took you that long to realize? I used other magics earlier you know." He then sheathed his sword and began to relax his body. He then undid the Fortification Magic spell on the girl's clothes and used his plants to grab them to him. "Here's your clothes back." He said before throwing them over to her.

"Uh...hehehehe.....", she squawks out nervously. "Sorry, I was in relaxation mode.. it was a girl thing, and when it got interrupted, especially because you're a similarly-dressed person to who I was looking for. Anyway I know it's a little late now but..I'm Sif. Sif Akiyama.", she chirped, trying to sound friendly despite the fact she attacked this boy.

"I'm Eugene Woodland." Eugene said acting as if that fight earlier didn't happen. Well, it wasn't as if he had to extert much energy anyway. And besides, he needed a bit of a warm up before starting the mission later tonight. "Don't worry too much about what just happened, that's happened to me before so it doesn't really bother me."

The girl's cheeks suddenly flush bright red and her bangs hide her eyes. "Uh..I'm just now realising something. I attacked you in my bikini..heh..", she stuttered out, obviously somewhat embarrassed by the fact that, she battled in a bikini. "My target probably heard what happened and is now most likely miles away..great.", she tutted as she mentally scorned herself.

"Yeah, it wasn't a smart idea to attack me in only a bikini. If I were actually trying to kill you, you'd have way too much skin exposed for me to hit you." Eugene said matter of factly. Having not been raised in a normal human society, he couldn't realy figure out the purpose of stuff like bikinis and other such objects that were meant to attract attention. Sif then started berating herself about losing her target. "Since I was the cause of you losing your target, I'll make it up to you." Eugene said before taking out a small device that his guildmate Ren had given him. It would display information that he needed. After a bit of searching, he found the job that Sif most probably accepted and then used the database with info gathered by his guildmate Sakura to figure out movement patterns and possible locations. "The man you're looking for belongs to the Dark Guild Soul Reaper, a dark guild which is nearby here. If he heard what you said and all that, that probably means he went back to his guild hall since he would then have the back up of his guild mates. I hate to say this but you're going to have trouble taking all of them on. There are about 35 members and they're all at least B rank."

"Thanks. And that just makes it more fun. But I suppose you can come along if you think I don't stand a chance..but you'll only be eating those words later.", she chuckles smugly, almost challengingly to the boy as she rings the water out of her hair, squeezing it between her hands as she gets ready to walk in the guild's direction.

"Well, I was already planning on attacking that guild in the first place." Eugene said in response. "While your mission was to take down one guy, I was assigned to take down an entire dark guild." It was then he noticed Shana walking towards them. She looked rather confused as she looked at Sif. "Hey Shana, is it time already?"

"Why is there a girl who looks like me!?!" Shana almost shouted wondering why there was a girl that looked just like her the resemblance between the two was almost scary.

"Well, now you can see why I confused you with her." Eugene whispered to Sif before getting inbetween the two females. "Okay Shana, this is Sif and Sif, this is Shana."

"Wow, you weren't kidding, we really do look alike. Hi!", the female Sword Mage answered with a warm tone, giving a wave towards her lookalike. "I guess this means we'll be working together, since we're both after the same guy..for now, anyway.", Sif chattered as she began walking in the Dark Guild's direction. Stopping and turning to the two new people, she smiles and calls out, "Well come on!", before moving into a jog.

The two Unchained Soul members just smiled and then got ready. "Open, Gate of the Poison Bird, Kurotori!" Shana exclaimed, summoning one of her celestial spirits. At that, a giant black bird came out and Shana jumped on it and the bird took off at a high speed. Eugene had increased his speed using his plants to help him increase the force to hit against the floor in order to increase his speed. Both of them were now going at a much faster speed than Sif.

"Just watch how we do things." Eugene said as he passed Sif. "Don't worry though, we'll leave your target to you." The two guildmates reached the Dark guild right outside the town. It seems that the enemy had been alerted of them coming and had prepared for battle. The Guild hall itself was weaponized and started shooting at them. "Shana, I'll handle the ones on the ground. You take down their guild hall." Eugene said as he drew both of his swords out. "Panzer!!" Eugene exclaimed as he activated it on his weapons and body before attacking several foes coming at him at blinding speeds with his dual wielding style.

Shana had flown above the enemy guild hall and aimed her anti material rifle downwards as she loaded a bullet. "Shooting Star Magic!" She exclaimed as she charged the attack with magic energy. "Fire!" She pulled the trigger and shot a powerful energy blast almost completely obliterating the enemy guild hall. "Enemy guild hall down!"

"Okay then, we focus on attacking more then!" Eugene said in excitement. He then saw Sif finally reach where they were. "What took you so long? Come on, let's finish this up. Try to find your target too."

"Hell yeah!", Sif proclaimed excitedly as she sped towards what was left of the Dark Guild and it's members. Sif's body begin to glow red, forming a humanoid construct of solid energy as she got closer. "True Heavenly Body Magic, activate!", she yelled as the humanoid aura turned into a literal giant of bright red Magic energy. "RED GIANT!!", she recited as it finished manifesting and roared demonically and earth-shakingly loud and began to swing its fists, obliterating the remaining members of Soul Reaper easily. Sif, in the Red Giant aura, grabbed her target and threw him up in the air. Using her Flight Magic, she went up after him, and getting above him; cancelled the Red Giant spell as her sword began to glow like a star. "DEMON BLADE...", she yelled raising her sword above her head, "CRIMSON BLOSSOM!!!!", she finally bellowed as the red, glowing sword obliterated the Dark Mage and sent him bombing into the ground, leaving a crater after impact.

"Oy, don't overdo it." Eugene said as he pulled Sif back down with his plants. "We're here to take them down, not slaughter them. And if you waste so much energy, it's going to affect you negatively for the times when the enemy has another trick up their sleeve. Also, we don't to cause the people nearby to panic. We have to be more discreet with it." Eugene was basically repeating what he had been told during his first mission for Unchained Soul and he was like Sif in the sense of going all out in a fight. "Anyway, have you found the guy you were supposed to find?"

"Heh, sorry, guess I'm still used to doing that because of the ways Sabertooth used to be. And yeah, that guy I just took down was him. Time to go turn him in.", she stated as she secured her knocked out target. "Anyway, now that I've got my target, and you've destroyed the guild...what now?", the female Sword Mage inquired.

"Well, we'll probably just go on back to our own guild hall now that the mission is over." Eugene said in response. "Or maybe we might just walk around the town since we have nothing else to do, we only received one mission today."

"For our leader, this is really lax isn't it?" Shana said. "Normally, he'd give us at least 3-4 small missions a day." She said explaining why Eugene had emphasized on not using more energy than what was enough. They normally had to go on multiple missions.

Sif chuckles. "So what's your Master like? Wait, first of all, what guild are you in? I can't see your emblems right now. I used to be in Sabertooth, S-Class no less.", Sif stated, almost sounding cocky about it as she walked alongside the two Unchained Soul mages, flicking her bangs out of her face.

"Our guild master is scary in his own way." Eugene said with a nervous laugh. "And he's really strong." He then proceeded to answer the next question. "As for what guild we belong to, well, you might not have heard of us since we try not to leave a record anywhere but we belong to an Independant guild called Unchained Soul. I also belong to the guild Fairy Tail." Sif then said that she was from Sabertooth and that she was S class and she was acting quite proud of that fact. "Ah, you're from Sabertooth huh? How are Sting and Rogue? I haven't seen them for a while. And as for you being an S class, that's nothing special at our guild. We have another girl in our guild who was formerly an S class mage from Mermaid Heel."

"Scary and strong? Heh..sounds like Minerva..", Sif giggled to herself. "Unchained Soul, huh? Overheard the name when I walked by people in a Café, so I know squat about it. Sting and Rogue? Well, Rogue is usual, overcast raincloud self..the guy creeps me out sometimes. Sting, though? He's actually quite a good Guild Master. He's ridiculously adorable most of the time, he's like a big child! It's so sweet.", Sif states as she gushes about the guild.

"Well, that sounds like those two alright, outside of battle anyway." Eugene said with a smile. "Maybe sometime I'll go spar with them when I have time."

"If you want to know, Unchained Soul is a guild which focuses on taking down Dark Guilds and Dark Mages." Shana said in response to Sif saying that she didn't know anything about their guild. "Of course that's not all we do but that's out main focus."

"Oh so you're like Crime Sorcieré? Neat. Also, Eugene, be careful. Sting-sama is a crafty thing sometimes when he's sparring.", Sif responded to the pair as they walked. She croons her head to look back at the destroyed guild hall of Soul Reaper, and meekly says, "I wonder if that'll have any repercussions..heh..".

"Yeah, I already know how he fights. I've had to observe him carefully, especially because he's a person who was able to match me even when my element was a bad match for his." Eugene said with his smile still on. He thought fighting Sting and such were fun. When Sif mentioned the destroyed guild hall, Eugene just turned to look back at the destruction they've caused. "Meh, that's not really a big deal, it's not as if they were a legal guild. And besides, they were causing the townspeople to become fearful. This should be fine."

"Lucky us.", Sif breathed along with a sigh of relief, before dragging Shana a bit closer to her, with button eyes and her hand in front of her (own) mouth, "So, are you two dating?", Sif whispers even though she knows Slayers have enhanced hearing, almost eerily similar to the way in which Happy from Fairy Tail would say it, with a secondary, playful teasing nature, also looking at Eugene with a taunting smirk.

"Nope." Shana said calmly in response as she slung her rifle on her back once more. Eugene's expression didn't change either. "We're just friends and guildmates." She said with the same amount of calm.

"Was there a reason as to why you asked that?" Eugene said, wondering whether normal people had this sort of conversation.

"I just think you'd be a cute pair", she muttered. "Anyway, mind if I come meet your guild? I'm on my own right now so I don't really have anywhere to be at the minute.", she shrugged as she spoke.

"I thought you two would look more like the cute pair." Shana whispered to Sif in response. "It's like I've seen it somewhere."

"If you want to meet our guild, we're fine with that." Eugene said ignoring the two female's conversation as he pulled out a small device and started typing into it while he began walking towards a random door. After he finished typing, he did something to the door and opened it. What should have a normal door to a closet was now leading to what seemed to be the inside of a large house. "Welcome to the base of Unchained Soul."