My patience was wearing thin. "That's what Rei is teaching you. You know, all that parrying and riposting stuff. THAT is what you do when they're swinging something sharp and evil-looking at you, ok," I explained some more. Gegory nodded. "Ok, now why were you throwing apples at me again? I'm sorry, I forgot," He asked, somewhat abashedly. Apparently that apple to the head had scattered his already meager wits. I groaned, "Ok, this is the last time..."

*Ten minutes later*

I grinned, "Yeah, like that!" Gegory tried to smile back as I pelted him with various fruits and vegetables, flinching only when he got hit in his, erm,more sensitive spot. I reached for something else to toss but saw that I'd depleted all of the food I'd commandeered for training. I looked back at the huge purplish lump called Gegory, "Great job. I couldn't have done better myself." He grinned widely, glad that today's torture was through. I laughed, "I'd say in a day or two you'll be ready for rocks!" His smile flailed, once, twice, before dissappearing completely. As he seemed to be in shock, I led him back to the barracks. The tavern had become our center of operations. It was where we ate, slept, and, most of all, drank. I helped him sit in a chair and fetched him something to drink. I placed the mug in one of his hands and he immediately snapped out of his funk, recognizing his dear friend "Muggy". An idiotic grin spread across his face and he took a sip as I walked out. I'd would've liked to see the look on his face when he realized he was drinking water. Instead I just heard a yelp and the easily recognizable sound of someone falling out of their chair.

I walked over to where Rei was training Volvo and Maria. The two trainees were sparring off with Rei giving them pointers on their stance, weight shifting, how to attack, and so forth. Volvo grinned like a madman (about the only way he ever grinned). Maria backed off a few feet, knowing that whenever he got that look, he was going to play dirty. Volvo leaped forward swinging his stick so hard that he fell off balance. Maria seized the chance to run in and club him in the back with her spatula. She almost did, anyway. It had been a ruse. Volvo cackled as he brought his staff hard on the backswing, slamming it into her shield and destroying it utterly. Maria backed off again, waving her hand in pain. Rei shouted to Maria, "Don't drop your guard! Attack him!" And Maria did. She screamed like a banshee, angry that the shield she'd spent hours making had been totalled, and threw the spatula at Volvo's face. He stopped cackling after a certain cooking tool slammed right between his eyes and a crazed Amazon/Chef tackled him and started pummeling him. Volvo grunted and heaved Maria off. The battered combatants rose, ready to rip each other's throats out.

However, Rei stepped in between and said, "That is enough for today. You both did well, but you MUST control your emotions. If either one of you had been thinking straight, the battle would have ended long ago." Volvo growled at Maria but was silenced by one of Rei's evil-eye glares. I don't know what it feels like to have one directed AT you, but my blood ran cold just watching Volvo squirm. He muttered what sounded like an apology before we all went into the HQ.

The trio of horribly bruised friends celebrated their first day of training by having a drink. Then another. And another. So on until they decided to call it a night. After they were all safely passed out on their cots, Rei and I reviewed our troops' performances. "Well, Gegory's gonna be one tough kid when I'm done with 'im. You should see how he takes an orange to the happy sacs. He made me proud," I said. After she got done laughing about that, Rei told me how Volvo and Maria were faring. "Both of them have potential to be good warriors. Especially Volvo. He's strong, tough, and skilled. Although I'm afraid that a real fight might put too much stress on his heart. Maria has the skill and she's determined, but she isn't too tough. I worry about her when she spars with Volvo," she explained to me. I nodded, understanding, "Yeah, he doesn't like to play nice, does he?" Rei shook her head, "Not at all, he's a clever old man. I'd hate to fight him."

With that said, all was silent for a minute. "Do...do you think we can win," Rei asked me, "And tell me honestly." I paused to think for a moment before answering, "Does it matter?"

"Yes, it does. My lord should not fight a battle he cannot win."

"You know I don't like to be called that. Besides, doesn't your honor require you to help them?"

"Yes...if we can't win, you should leave. I'd stay and try to help."

"If that's the case, we'll win. I don't need to leave and I certainly am not going to abandon you here."

"Amada..."

Rei seemed relieved. If things got hairy, I'd leave, but not without her. I'd drag her kicking and screaming if necessary. I would help this town as much as I could, but I wouldn't die for them. Or allow Rei to for that matter. I looked outside. It had to be getting pretty late. "We should probably get some sleep. We've got an early day tomorrow," I said quietly, not wanting to wake up our "soldiers". She nodded. I turned and walked to my cot.

"Amada."

I turned around, "What is it?"

Rei looked at me for a moment, "Nevermind, it is nothing. Goodnight."

What did she want to tell me? I wanted to ask, but I couldn't bring myself to.

"Goodnight."

I laid on my cot and closed my eyes, pulling up the covers. It wasn't soon after that I was asleep.

*A week later*

Volvo and Maria squared off, both growling like feral animals. He inniated the fight by charging forward and trying to brain Maria. She parried with her spatula and kicked Volvo in the knee. He grunted and rammed a fist into her stomach before the two disengaged, each with their own injury. Rei looked on, proud at the self-contol both were exhibiting. Maria stepped forward and feinted to the right before swinging from the left. Volvo anticipated the move and caught her spatula on his staff. With a flick of his wrists, he sent her weapon flying. Maria sighed and held up both of her hands in surrender. "Ok, the match belongs to Volvo. It's a draw between the both of you," Rei stated. It was clear that the pair were ready. I applauded them both. "Good job, your new equipment is inside," I told them. At the mention of the new equipment, Maria ran inside, skipping excitedly.

Volvo shook his head. "Young 'uns these days, too exuberant for their own good," he said, hobbling inside. Geg (I don't know when it started but we all called him that now) had been declared free from training last night and had taken the opportunity to catch up on lost time by showing off his new chainmail suit, sword (unsharpened), and helmet while drinking more than was humanly possible. Volvo and Maria had been eager to finish training today, both poorly concealing their envy for Gegory and his new "stuff". As Rei and I walked inside, we could hear Maria squealing in delight and Volvo complaining. "...they don't make it like they used to," he said, loud enough so that everyone could hear him whining.

Once inside, we saw Maria wearing her steel breastplate and swinging around her brand-new, custom-made battle spatula. It was weighted and sharpened so that it was more like a hand axe than the pancake-flipping utensil it had come from. Volvo was holding his new club at armslength, examining it closely. He must have decided that it was satisfactory because he took his old club and hurled it out the door.

"Line up," I said, trying out the "command" voice I'd been practicing. The three lined up. I nodded to them, "Good. We've trained for a week now and I think we're ready to go and assassinate those bandit people." The trio nodded.

"Yessir!"

"Aye!"

and, "Yay!"

I grinned. "We should inform the mayor," Rei suggested, ever helpful. I nodded, enthused.

*The next day*

Zobias stood in front of us, observing the townspeople that had showed up to see us off. He cleared his throat before going off on his speech, "Good morning O townspeople of Yeshika! We are gathered here today to wish our army good fortune as they leave to immolate the infamous Thugbone army. Let's give them a hand!" The crowd cheered, genuinely believing that we'd get the job done. Our troops grinned and waved and so on. At least they were having fun. Rei was as unreadable as she always was, but I knew for a fact that I wasn't enjoying this. I never had and never would enjoy formal events such as this one. As my mind wandered on, Zobias continued his speech about "us brave warriors, willing to do battle against impossible odds," etc, etc, etc.

I was jerked back to reality as Zobias elbowed me and said through his cheezy grin, "To Amada, the courageous paladin, we present the Senkagokai robe, the symbol of our village's power." He handed me an ugly gray robe with blue and white stripes around the collar and helped me put it on. I forced a smile and waved at the crowd. They exploded into another paroxysm of yelling and clapping. The mayor then moved over to Rei. "And to Rei, the beautiful swordswoman, we bequeath the Kimono of Timeless Beauty and Ultimate Gracefulness at Perennial Arrangements," Zobias said, taking a minute to catch his breath. That done, Zobias decided to give a history lesson. He bowed, "As you all know, the Senkagokai robe has been passed down from mayor to mayor for as long as anyone can remember. It is said that the wearer of the robe shall become impervious to all lightning. We know this is true. For didn't my own grandpa test the robe by wearing it outside into a thunderstorm while he waved a metal pole? And did he not survive the divine bolt that struck him? Aye, he did twitch every once in a while over the following days, but that is no matter."

He gestured to Rei as she came back wearing her new kimono, pink with a hideous floral arrangement all over it. "And who could forget the Kimono of Timeless Beauty and Ultimate Gracefulness at Perennial Arrangements? It has been passed down for a scant hundred years, but nevertheless it is an icon representing our village's love of all things beautiful. It is said to bestow to it's wearer both grace and speed in everything they do. With these artifacts they shall triumph," Zobias concluded sharply to the half-hearted cheers of a crowd that had, frankly, gotten tired of cheering after the first hour or so. Our "army" paraded on out of the village, headed for the Thugbone army camp.

*That afternoon*

We all stood on the hill, overlooking the camp. It was huge. The entire valley was filled with tents and troops were scattered among them, going on their business. There had to be at least a thousand troops altogether. Simply put, this would be hard. The others were sitting around our plan, a drawing in the sand. The gist of it was this: wait until night, sneak to the commander's tent, incapacitate their leader. Something like that anyway. Rei went on, clarifying the plan so that everyone had some clue about what they were supposed to do. "Gegory, you and Volvo are the rear guard. Amada and I will take the lead and Maria is our reserve," she explained. Everyone nodded. "I guess we wait till night, then," I said.

*That night*

Our group maneuvered through the camp. Ahead a guard stood, facing away from us. I signaled to Rei. She stalked forward and cut, severing his head. It bounced away like a morbid basketball (or something equivalently round and bouncy). The sentry still stood, unmoving. Rei inspected him before waving the rest of us over. She stepped aside so I could get a look. The "soldier" was nothing more than a scarecrow wearing armor. Duh, I should have known. When we'd observed the army earlier, a large amount of the bandits hadn't moved. Now we knew why. Still, even discounting the fake troops, there had to be about a hundred of the cutthroats. Too many.

We'd still have to finish off the leaders and hope to God that the others ran off somewhere. I waved toward the commander's tent and we continued on. When we were ten feet away, a burly man stumbled out and started relieving himself over some bushes. Everyone froze. The guy finished up and, not noticing us, turned around to go back to bed. On his way he paused and looked straight at us. His eye's bulged and Rei leaped forward to silence him in mid-yell. He stumbled backwards yelping, barely avoiding Rei's blade. The people inside the tent apparently had heard him, as we could hear more than one person cursing as they awakened.

Rei quickly finished her opponent off and backed to where the rest of us stood. Suddenly, we were surrounded by bandits. The only thing that prevented them from cutting us to ribbons right then and there was a voice. "Don't kill them," a huge man commanded, stepping forward to see who had the audacity to attack his camp. I felt sickened. These last few weeks, I'd seen an overabundance of "huge" guys that, for the most part, didn't want to be friendly. He looked our group up and down before he turned and berated a guard, "How did these idiots get in here? I should have your head for that, fool."

He turned back to us, torchlight glinting off his bald head. "Tell you what, I'll let you all go if you can beat some of my men. One-on-one, best out of five. What do you say," the bandit leader suggested, an evil glint in his eyes. I looked around at my companions. They shrugged. We really didn't have any choice."Ok, we'll do that," I said, fairly confident that we couldn't stand up to all of his troops at once. He grinned, "Good, pick your order and tell that guy over there." He pointed to a greasy looking individual who practically cowered from the attention. Our little group huddled together. "Why is that guy doing this," Gegory asked, aprehensive at the turning of events.

"He doesn't think we stand a chance," Rei answered truthfully. After a minute or two, we decided on an order. We sent Maria off to tell the specified guy and got ready for our own individual battles. The leader and his four chosen duelers gathered at the opposite side of the impromptu ring that the bandits had formed. Gegory stepped forward and nearly turned and fled when a giant of a man did the same. This looked bad. Gegory's opponent lifted a two-handed hammer to his shoulder. It was roughly the same height as our unfortunate little friend. Someone bashed a gong and the battle began.

Gegory's enemy wasted no time, charging at him and trying to flatten him in one fell blow. At the last possible minute, Geg stepped to the left and slammed his blunt sword into the small of the man's back. The man grunted and swung his hammer around, missing and throwing himself off balance. Gegory hurriedly smashed the guy in his neck and, even over the cheering, everyone heard the snap. His sword, not the guy's neck. However, he did howl in pain and clamp a hand to the now visible (and dented) armor plate he wore on his neck. Gegory stood there shocked until his foe punched him in his face. He reeled, but, true to his training, remained on his feet.

The titan growled and got ready to finish the fight when Gegory started windmilling his arms. True, he was only trying to keep from falling, but it also served to pummel the guy enough to make him back off. The tables had turned and Gegory quickly took advantage of it by tackling him. Incidentally, Geg landed on him wrong (or right, depending on how you look at it) and snapped his neck. Everyone shut up. A moment of silence passed before a couple of bandits separated from the crowd and dragged off victim #1. Another dueler stepped up, glaring daggers at us. He unsheathed his rapier and took up a fencing pose.

Volvo strode forward, grunting and nodding at his enemy. His opponent nodded back in a mocking manner. The gong sounded. Both leapt forward, the fencer parrying Volvo's thrust and trying to penetrate his guard. Volvo wouldn't have any of that and after batting the rapier aside, he drove his heel into the other man's knee. The man screamed, clutching his shattered knee. Volvo lifted his staff above his head. Before he could deliver the coup-de-grace, he dropped his weapon and grabbed his chest. We rushed out to help him. He looked up at us, his face as pale as a ghost. A heart attack. "Oh crapcrapcrap," I said, hoisting him up and carrying over to our "area". I set him down as gently as possible, already he had lost consciousness. I didn't like to rely on runes, but now was an exception. I placed my right hand on Volvo's chest and concentrated, invoking the Resurrection rune. The sound of a man yelling ripped through the air and energy coursed into his body. His breathing resumed at a more normal rate and his skin regained some of it's color. Still, he was far from okay.

The Bandit leader came over and grinned at us, "Our man is conscious and yours is not. It has been declared a win for our side." With that said, he turned and walked back to his side of the arena. I growled. I hoped that I would be fighting him 'cuz I had lots of mean things I felt like doing to him. Our next in line was Maria. Their next in line was a petite woman carrying a hand axe and a shield. They stood across from each other and bowed right before the now familiar sound of the gong rang out. Maria feinted, drawing her opponent's weapon low and bashing the woman with her shield. The woman took the blows in stride, delivering a few of her own. Maria managed to get the upper hand and drove the axe-lady backwards. Maria's opponent jumped backward and shouted something. A tornado formed over Maria, throwing her around like a rag doll, ending only when she stopped struggling. Yet again, we found ourselves running forward. Fortunately, she was breathing. On further inspection, she seemed ok, except for a possibly broken arm.

We brought her back and laid her next to Volvo, who was now enjoying a nap. I looked back to see Rei and her foe, a dark man carrying two short swords. I recognized him, he was one of the brigands who had attacked Galarin. If anyone could beat Rei, this guy was a candidate. The gong rang and the fight was joined. The two circled each other, searching for an opening in the other's defense. Without warning, Rei leapt forward and sliced horizontally. Her movements were almost a blur. One of the fellow's blades blocked her attack. He too was fast. The swordsman sneered as he stabbed at Rei. She somehow managed to deflect the blow with her forearm without getting cut. She drew her sword up in a fluid movement, severing one of his hands. He stared at his spurting stump and screamed. An instant later he stopped. Apparently, he wasn't fast enough. The two bandits came out and dragged the decapitated body off.

So this was it. It was down to me and him. All our lives hung in the balance and I was going to be the deciding factor. I stepped forward at the same time as he. We took each other's measure and, dramatically, a wind blew russling our hair and the Senkagokai robe, which I'd forgotten I was still wearing. He smiled at me. "You and I, eh? Fitting...No holds barred," The leader said, fingering his spear. I nodded mutely. As soon as the gong sounded, I swung my oar at his head. The bandit stepped back, the oar whizzing inches from his nose, before he stomped forward, impaling me. That is, he would have, but his spear was deflected by an unseen shield. I grinned, batting his legs out from under him. I'd tested the robe's protective properties on our way here, with the help of Gegory. I broke his left arm in one swing of my oar. He grunted and pointed his right hand at me. A bolt of lightning struck me full in the chest, tossing me through the air like nothing. As soon as I regained my breath, I got back to my feet, much to the amazement of everyone else, especially my opponent. He stuttered, mightily surprised, "That was a Thor Bolt! Ho...how?!" I capitalized on his inactivity by charging him. He actually looked scared now. I swung with all my might at his neck. He had the presence of mind to bring his spear up, but with only one arm he couldn't hope to block my attack. His spear was knocked away. I finished him with a blow to the head.

The bandits were speechless. The man they'd been deathly afraid of and his hand-picked troops had just had the crap beat of them by some mysterious group made up of two youths, a senior citizen, and two unstoppable warriors. It started as a trickle, one bandit here, one there. A few seconds later, however, they were fleeing every which way. Sure, a few did attack, but Rei and I made short work of them. Not too long after that, we were totally alone. We bandaged the trio where they needed it and set off for Yeshika. With Maria and Volvo unconscious, it was slow, but we did get back early the next morning.

When the village was in our sights, we heard a woman call out and, by the time we arrived, a crowd had gathered and welcomed us enthusiastically by throwing potatoes (I distantly remember some mention of all their flowers being destroyed). We tried grinning, but after about a hundred of the projectile vegetables, we settled for grunting. Five minutes later, we arrived at the mayor's house and had Maria and Volvo resting with a doctor. There were speeches. There were celebrations. There were feasts. Somehow, we spent three more days there before Rei and I decided to return to Radat.

The trio waved good bye, well, Volvo didn't, but that was just the way he was. Rei waved back and I sorta gestured at them. The town had allowed us (read as: coerced us) to take both The Kimono of Timeless Beauty and Ultimate Gracefulness at Perennial Arrangements (something like that) and the ugly Senkagokai robe thingie. Oh well, just another day thwarting evil.

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"Amada" and "Suikoden 2" are (C) Konami. This chapter was posted February 27, 2000