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"Testosterone Makes Fools" (Mercenary Fortress) Seed's breathing was erratic and heavy. After entering the fortress grounds resistance had stiffened. Most of the mercenaries must have been holed up inside the fortress, waiting for Highland's soldiers to enter. Four out of the dozen soldiers that had accompanied him inside had been killed; another two were helped aside, suffering from severe stab wounds. Six were all that was left and from what he could tell, Ruka could have entered the fortress already. Damn it, he cursed. The mercenaries' magician had disappeared and unless he was taken care of, the lives of Highland's troops were at risk. But if he went after the boy, Ruka might get to Jillia before him. It was hardly even a choice. Leaving his troops behind to fight with the few mercenaries who were standing their ground, he slipped past the battle line and ran for the fortress. Bursting in the front door, he saw a young boy sprinting up to the second floor. He was too pudgy to be the same one who'd been commanding the soldiers, so Seed ignored him and looked around. Somewhere in here there must be someone who knows where they're keeping Jillia, he reasoned. If he hadn't slipped on it, he'd have missed the blood trail leading from the door to behind a counter. Good enough. If the mercenary were alive, Seed would bargain healing for information. He stepped around the counter, flexing the Flowing Rune on his hand - -And stopped completely dead as he took in the scene. This was no mercenary soldier lying there - it was Jillia!! "Oh, princess, what've they done to you?!'" Seed groaned, and knelt to her side while his Flowing rune glowed a blue aura and droplets of water formed above her head. Makoto Gentaro was at the back gate of the fort, giving a recently healed cavalry scout his orders. "You get to Flik and tell him the fort has fallen, got it? We're pulling out and meeting at the Toto bridge, then pulling back to Muse. He's to avoid more fighting with the Highland soldiers and head for Toto - someone's gotta guard the people who're carrying our stuff! Same goes for Viktor if you see him! Go!!" he yelled, clapping the horse on its behind and setting it running. He turned back into the fort - and stopped as he saw Pohl waving at him from the upper-story windows. "Makoto!! One of the Highlanders got in!! He's downstairs by the door, and I think he's got one of our wounded by the shop counter!!" the pudgy boy yelled, and Makoto kicked into motion. {Most of our soldiers are already gone - I'll have to do this myself,} he thought, pulling his tonfa off his back and concentrating on his Rune for a moment, realizing he had only one of each spell left. {I'll have to save 'em until I really need them,} he decided, and ran to the door of the fort, bursting in suddenly. Then he stopped in shock. Even a Kyaro kid like Makoto had heard of General Seed, and awe made him catch his breath for a moment - until he saw *who* the general was leaning over, and the awe blew away in the hot wind of protective anger. "You. Get. Away. From. *Jillia!*" he barked out, and Seed stood up and turned to face him, looking very agitated. "Leave us, this is none of your concern," he said flatly while drawing his sword. Jillia woke slowly from the daze induced by lack of blood. The first thing she noticed that she was fully cured of the arrow wound. The second thing she notices was Makoto and Seed glaring daggers at each other and about to include more dangerous weapons in the duel. "Stop it!" she exclaimed. "Uncle Seed! Makoto! What do you think you're doing?" At once both of their attentions shifted to her. "Jillia!" "Little sis!" Makoto blinked, sure that he'd miss heard something. "'Uncle Seed'?! 'Little sis'?! What the -" Jillia sighed. Men! "Uncle Seed, this is Makoto. He helped me when I first got here," she introduced. "Makoto, this is General Seed. He's one of my closest friends in Highland." She looked between the two and saw they were still glaring uncertainly at each other. "Oh will you both stop playing the hero! Now kiss and make up!" That got two raised eyebrows between the two of them. "Umm... shake hands, I meant.... Stop looking at me that way and shake!" The two shook hands as Jillia failed to catch a murmured exchange of words between them. "Is she like this often?"
"No, I think it's stress." There was a sudden commotion that inspired Seed to use a colorful set of words that both teenagers would never admit to saving for future use. "I'm going to have to rejoin the fight before anyone notices I'm missing. I wish I could make sure you get out of here safely, little sis, but..." He clenched his jaw and turned to Makoto. "I'm gonna have to trust Jillia's judgement about you, Makoto. I'm making you personally responsible for her getting out of here alive and if anything happens to her, I swear by my blade that I'll find you, and -" "Seed!" "... Sorry, Jill." He turned to her while reaching into his robe and placed a pearl white handled dagger in her hands. "I want you to keep this for me, Jillia. Once all of this is over, we'll meet again and you can return it. This dagger is very dear to me, it once belonged to my mother and is the one of the last things I have to remember them. Please, consider it our promise that we will meet again." Jillia looked down at it. The simple design and sheath, holding so many meanings in it's deceptively simple form. "I promise," she said, embracing him for the last time for a long while. As Seed turned around, Makoto saluted. "General Seed, sir, you don't really have to worry about hunting me down." The boy gave the general a small, slightly morbid grin. "If anything happened to Jillia I'd probably already be dead." Jillia gasped. "Makoto!" she whispered, her hand over her mouth in shock. Makoto glanced at her apologetically, but kept facing Seed. "And General, sir - there's something you have to know." He straightened up and saluted again. "Makoto Gentaro of the Unicorn Brigade reporting, sir. I have the displeasure of reporting that the Brigade was massacred through treachery plotted by Commander Rowd, and the massacre was carried out by Prince Ruka Bright and his White Wolves. Circumstance has kept me from reporting this to the palace, sir - I hope you have better luck. Farewell, sir." Seed returned his sword to its scabbard, turned around and then he was gone. Makoto turned to Jillia. "I'm sorry, Jillia - he's your brother, it can't be easy for you." The princess turned to him. "It's all right. I'm just glad you and Seed didn't beat each other up to protect me!" Makoto chuckled. "Good point. Let's get upstairs and get Pohl, then we can get out of here!" he said, leading the way up. Thoughts raced through Seed's head like wildfire. He had heard of the Unicorn Bridage massacre and foolishly took Ruka at his word of who was responsible. Damn it... As if by queue, Stiles caught Seed walking out the fort entrance and immediately ran up to him. "Lord Seed, I've been looking everywhere for you.. Wh-" Seed stuck out his hand, silencing him while stroking away his red hair. "I know what you are going to say Stiles, and I can see perfectly." "-Eh?" "Never mind, Stiles." Seed sighed and crouched to the ground, inspecting a mercenary corpse that had obviously been killed by an arrow to his back. He reached out and snapped off the arrow shaft and rolled the body over on it's back. The eyelids were still wide open, and it was evident that he didn't know where the arrow came from. The young general ran two fingers down it's eyelids and closed them. He may have been an enemy, but in death it didn't matter. "Stiles, I want you to head back to Highland." Stiles walked over and looked down at the fresh corpse, then back to Seed. "And what about you, sir?" Seed's eyes squinted as he took a quick scan of the area, "I'm going to stay here a bit. I might as well see this through to the end."
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