Snow And Slavers

"Heh. Not wanting to be around clusters of women for too long sounds kinda like me. Rich girls can be the most terrible people in existence because they have sharp tongues and they have the money to get away with it." Victoria informed Nenet. She knew about this tendency from her days on the streets of Capital Crocus, where the local rich girls never missed a chance to talk trash about Victoria despite knowing the latter was within earshot and especially when the latter was within earshot. Aside from the usual trash talk about Victoria's out-of-date, dirty, and sometimes tattered clothing, flat chest that made her look like a male in drag, and the snide remarks they made about the brunette so poor that she had to scavenge for leftovers, they frequently commented that she must have been a "mistake" that was the result of a one-night stand with some random guy. They were one of the many reasons that Victoria hated Capital Crocus as much as she adored alcohol.

"Yeah, me too. I'm not much for talk either. You had to settle things with your fists on the streets or you didn't last long. It's still my go-to method of problem-solving, if only because I don't know much else." Victoria admitted to Nenet. The two made a good team because they had the same approach to a problem like slavers. They did not waste time with lectures or trying to empathize with slavers or outlaws... they just punched the problem in the face until it stopped being a problem. It was a simple approach devoid of tact or subtlety, but not too many people complained about slavers being apprehended or outlaws suddenly developing cases of lead poisoning.

Victoria was so focused on the threat in front of her and Nenet that she had neglected to watch for danger from behind. The brunette felt a presence behind them and turned to see Itori's vermilion eyes looking at them. It took everything the startled brunette had to not shout something that would give them away, but she refrained from it, instead opting to mutter incoherently about how she wanted a drink after all of this was over. Fox Lady sure knew how to be stealthy... she was either a master of stealth with several centuries of practice or she could cast a dampening field that muffled the noise she made. Considering what she had said and done in The Frozen Phoenix earlier, Victoria deduced that Itori could cast a dampening field to muffle the noise she made, which was a handy skill to have for an attractive fox lady who easily drew attention due to her species.

Victoria calmed down and kept her eyes towards the path while she listened to Itori and Nenet discuss the game plan for attacking the camp. Itori lamented that the slavers were so concentrated because them being spread out would have made it easier for the trio to dispatch them in small groups instead of having to fight the whole camp at once. The fox lady was right... the slavers getting spread out would have made things easier, but they had been alerted to the approach of the Sabertooth trio and thus remained in the camp and safely on the defense. The trio would just have to do this the hard way... or would they? This kind of situation was where Itori's planning ability was worth the fox lady's weight in gold.

Itori laid out a general plan that involved her using her magic to conceal their approach from observation until the trio could strike. Itori then assigned Victoria and Nenet the task of neutralizing isolated sentry teams after they were tired and unfocused from the monotony of patrolling the perimeter of their snowy stronghold. The pair would do so on Itori's signal, which was fine with the brunette. She was no great thinker and appreciated the direction from someone who had planning abilities that were superior to her own. Victoria listened the best she could while keeping an eye out for any response from the slavers.

After laying out the plan Itori conjured a simple but accurate schematic of the camp for the benefit of Nenet and Victoria. It was simple, but it was accurate enough to get the job done. Victoria took a moment to glance back at it and was surprised by the fact that it could be done, let alone be done with any semblance of accuracy. Magic was a wonderful thing. She then focused on her part of the plan, which was to work with Nenet to be the tip of the spear when the time to go loud came... in the meantime the brunette gave some commentary to make it look like she had been paying attention to Itori's briefing, which made the brunette notice that the schematic was an interactive one that would flash when Itori discussed a particular point of the camp.

"Using the barracks for cover is a good idea, Itori. They went to so much trouble to watch for infiltrators. They even went to the trouble to watch the cliffside on the off chance some either climbed it or flew in from that direction, but I doubt they'll expect an infiltration from the barracks area." Victoria chimed in, impressed with Fox Lady's quick planning. Itori had a solid plan that was also simple enough for Victoria to execute without too much chance of messing it up. The brunette heard that she was going to be one half of the offense and immediately began to plot what weapon she would bring to the party.

"I heard you need some firepower, so I'll give you a rundown of my best gear. I have a Grenade Launcher that can fire Tear Gas. It's less-than-lethal by itself, but it's not much good in the open 'cause the wind can blow it off-course. We don't need tear gas going back in our faces. I can also fire Bean Bag Rounds from it." Victoria chimed in to the duo. Firing tear gas into the barracks would be a good way to flush them out, but Itori was going to clean out the barracks, so that was a no-go. She would be better served firing bean bag rounds from the weapon because Itori needed the slavers alive.

"Then there's my Tranquilizer Rifle. It can sedate targets from long range and each dose is regulated to avoid accidental overdoses." Victoria offered another kind of firepower for Itori to consider.

"Then if you want a noisemaker, I have a Light Machine Gun that'll grab their attention. It's lethal, though." Victoria offered a noisemaker option in case all Itori needed was some noise to throw the slavers off. It was a lethal weapon that could more than take care of anyone caught in front of it, but unless the situation got dire enough to switch to lethal force the trio wanted to take the slavers alive. She also had to be careful to make sure her shots did not punch through the thin walls of the makeshift prison far to the north of their position.

"I have a few less-than-lethal spells too. Just tell me what you want me to use when we start to make our move." Victoria said to Itori. The brunette would use whatever weapon or spells that Fox Lady wanted her to use. Itori was in charge and Victoria was part of the muscle that would go about making the plan a success.

[Post Word Count: 1,252]
[Victoria's Word Count: 12,752/12,500]
[Total Word Count: 25,271/25,000]

With the three of them reunited and focused on the task at hand it was time to lay the finishing touches on the plan that should help secure the captives and suppress the slavers. Neither Victoria nor Nenet appeared to have any objections to Itori's plan, which meant that the only thing left was to decide what kind of weapons Victoria should be using. The tenko was aware that the brunette's magic was more suited for extreme offence, mercilessly mowing down a large variety of targets. The fact that they had to do this non-lethally if possible might be a bit of a problem, but thankfully Victoria herself didn't have any complaints and instead did her best to lay out the possibilities.

Itori considered Victoria's words briefly before she made up her mind. "I would suggest that you utilize the tranquilizer rifle for the perimeter guards, given that does appear to be the option least likely to draw attention." A bit of a common problem with the gungirl's spells were that they all were based off of explosive weaponry. Itori could dampen the sounds, but it still meant they had to be cautious. "Once inside, and after I have disabled the slavers hidden inside the barracks, you should prioritize weapons that allow you to hinder and suppress as many slavers as possible while also catching the eyes of everyone in the camp. The tear gas grenade is most likely one of the better options for that task, especially given the fact that I should be able to protect us from it." A simple magic barrier would also keep out harmful gases, especially if Itori knew what she was dealing with. "That said we still do not know exactly what kind of forces the slavers might bring forth once they become aware of our presence, so I leave it up to you to decide which spells you use beyond that. Just remain aware that our highest priority is the safety of the captives, with as secondary objective capturing the slavers alive so they can be tried legally. Lethal measures should only be resorted to if non-lethal measures jeopardize your own safety or the captives."

Completely truthfully speaking it wouldn't matter too much if the slavers died here. The world would keep spinning, and while they might be missed for a while live would move on. Given the size of this operation the biggest impact would most likely be on the black market, and that was only beneficial for the legal forces of Fiore as long as it was handled properly.

However it would also harm the name of Sabertooth, so Victoria, Nenet and Itori would just have to do their best to not kill a single slaver. No matter how tempting it might be.

"Shall we go then?" Nenet was aware of the importance of a proper strategy, but she wished Itori would hurry up a little. The ancient tenko was a bit too inclined to take it easy no matter the situation so far as the phoenix was concerned.

"I believe so yes. Remain still for a moment so I can place the illusion upon you both." Itori focused her magic, her ears twitching as she took in the sounds that made up the fabric of reality. She could hear the rustling of cloth and beneath that the soft hum of vibrating atoms. Placing the fingertips of her hands together she wove a spell which curled around the three of them, altering the patterns of reality into one which suited their needs. Each one of them got their individual spellwoven cloak of invisibility, a layer of magic that surrounded them completely and which would cause outsiders to see and hear nothing. Invisibility was simultaneously one of the easiest types of illusions and one of the hardest, at least if you wanted to do it properly.

"It has been done. Both of you, approach the camp from the direction of the barracks. I will handle communications for as long as the invisibility lasts and direct you to your targets." Nenet nodded impatiently even though the other two couldn't see it. Well, Itori could, but that was besides the point. The phoenix just wanted to start moving already.

Sensing that the firebird was moments away from just heading out on her own Itori ended the briefing. "Go, and be careful." She wouldn't join them immediately, instead moving invisibility towards the top of the hill from which she could see the entire camp. From here she would have a good position to overlook the infiltration, sending silent whispers to the ears of both Nenet and Victoria to guide their movements to avoid the slavers as much as possible until only the perimeter guards directly between them and the barracks were still an issue.

If there were no further complications Itori would give the silent order for Victoria to use her tranquilizer rifle to take care of the guard on the right while Nenet knocked out the guard on the left. Given that area behind the barracks wasn't considered a dangerous point from a defensive point of view there were only two perimeter guards there, and all the other slavers were far enough away that if Nenet and Victoria were careful enough nobody should notice until it was already too late.

WC: 887
PWC: 13,390/12,500
TWC: 26,158/25,000 (Completed)

Victoria heard the suggestion to bring out her Tranquilizer Rifle for use against the perimeter guards and was happy to oblige. She brought out the non-lethal weapon and kept it still to prevent the lens flare from catching the attention of patrolling slavers before the trio was ready to make their move into the camp. She then listened to the fox lady with the patience of a Wizard Saint go over their objectives one last time before the fecal matter hit the oscillating air device. Despite knowing what they had to do, Victoria kept quiet and listened to Itori lay out their objectives.

Their main objective was to free the captives and get them to safety. The secondary objective was to subdue all the slavers with non-lethal or less-than-lethal force so that they could be taken alive to face the legal system instead of the brand of extrajudicial justice that Victoria endorsed. Itori made it abundantly clear that lethal force was a last resort and was only to be used if the captives were in danger of being executed. Victoria could live with that condition.

Victoria's main magic was all about lethal force and making her a force multiplier by allowing her to engage groups of enemies by herself with a Light Machine Gun; it also had anti-armor capability in the form of her Rocket Launcher. Her main magic culminated in a Beam Cannon spell that could punch through most forms of armor like it was notebook paper. She could understand Itori's insistence on being careful because wooden buildings could not stand up to explosives, Light Machine Gun rounds, or Beam Cannon shots.

Her Combat Medic magic had good less-than-lethal options like a Grenade Launcher that could fire high-explosive, Tear Gas, or Bean Bag rounds and a Tranquilizer Rifle that was guaranteed not to kill targets from accidental overdoses, which made it easier for the brunette to carry out the secondary objective. Combat Medic magic was another asset because it also gave her healing spells in case the slavers tried to execute the captives but did not quite succeed; healing spells powered up by the Crown of Persephone could stabilize them enough to get them to "real" medical attention. There was also the more obvious benefit of being able to patch up Nenet or Itori on the fly if they needed quick medical attention.

"OK. I'll use the Tranquilizer Rifle since it's got a feature that automatically regulates the dosage of each shot so that there's no accidental overdoses. The only problem is that while they won't die from being shot by it, they can still die from stumbling off a cliff or by stumbling into other hazards while under the tranquilizer's effects. I'll do my best to be careful with it." Victoria informed Itori, taking care to add a warning about the weapon's effects. Victoria would try to take into account where the slavers were when she shot them to avoid fatalities, even accidental ones. It would be best to use her special Slow Down dart because it induced a feeling of fatigue in the target that lowered their movement speed, thus reducing the likelihood of them running off a cliff in a blind panic or mustering enough strength to kill the captives before they could be rescued.

"I'll use tear gas if you want, but be ready to protect us from it when I use it. Tear gas doesn't take sides." Victoria politely said to Itori. It would be a good weapon to flush out slavers taking cover in buildings and it was a good weapon against groups of slavers for as long as the wind did not shift. If it did shift, then things could get messy.

Once Victoria had finished with her statement she watched Itori work her fox lady magic to weave an invisibility spell for both Nenet and the brunette. Once she did Victoria looked down at her arms and saw that they were practically invisible, as was her weapon. This was so cool.

It was like that old movie with the hunting alien stalking those military dudes in the jungle, only Victoria got to be the invisible hunter stalking its prey. Her rifle was also rendered invisible by the spell, so she did not have to worry about lens flare giving her position away. The only real concern was that the invisibility spell did not remove her ability to leave footprints, so Victoria would have to be careful during her approach on the slavers. All it took was one attentive sentry paying attention at the wrong moment and the stealth approach would be compromised. However, they were not going up against special forces operatives, so as long as they practiced basic stealth ideas by keeping quiet, avoiding lines of sight, and not moving too fast, Nenet and Victoria would be OK.

"OK, we'll get going." Victoria said to Itori. The meter was running, so Phoenix Chick and her had better get going and stop the slavers in case they were planning to burn their ledgers and kill the captives to eliminate any evidence of their crimes. Victoria took a deep breath and began to follow Nenet on the way to the slaver barracks.

-Inside the camp-

The pair slipped into the perimeter near the barracks with ease. Victoria took slow, silent breaths and moved slowly towards the back of the barracks, keeping an eye on the guards who were barely paying attention. They occasionally looked in the direction of the pair, but it was a cursory glance at the environment and not an "actively searching for intruders" glance. Nenet and Victoria were taking advantage of their lack of focus and Victoria leveled the Tranquilizer Rifle at the chest of the man on the right and held her breath to prevent the sight of fog rising up from nowhere and alerting the sentries to the presence of the cloaked mages.

Victoria aimed carefully and fired a Slow Down dart that struck the sentry on the right in the chest and injected him with sedative. Now was the time for Nenet to come in and knock the guy on the left out before the alarm was raised prematurely.

[Post Word Count: 1,033]
[Victoria's Word Count: 13,785/12,500]
[Total Word Count: 27,191/25,000]

With the plan hashed out and preparations made the only thing left to do was the execution. Nenet received her invisibility cloak without complaint, waiting for it to fully take effect before she also headed over towards their target destination. The two of them would be taking care of the first pair of guards, and then Itori would start the next step. Straightforward, simple, and easy as long as nobody fucked up in any significant manner. Perfect.

For her part Itori watched them as they moved, the illusion she herself wove to render the two of them hidden from sight ineffective against her own vermilion gaze. No self-respecting illusionst would allow themselves to be fooled by their own magic, and the tenko was no fool. As she suspected the two of them had little to no issue making their way up to the camp and then inside of it, their invisibility combined with their own skills rendering them almost impossible to detect: even Nenet, the normally boisterous and in-your-face phoenix, was surprisingly capable of advanced stealth tactics when the sitaution called for it. Of course she knew that the fiery birdgirl likened this to stalking unsuspecting prey, which wasn't necessarily untrue although it did delegate the human slavers to a potentially subhuman role.

At least Itori knew for sure that Nenet's heart was in the right place, even if her heart didn't get in the way of her punching someone senseless when the sitaution called for it or even if they just pissed her off. Phoenixes were... strange, at least this particular case.

The guards were all trying their best to keep an eye out, knowing that there was someone out there who wanted to take care of their little organization, but at the same time they didn't know what exactly they were dealing with. That being, they did know what their targets looked like but they didn't know about the capabilities of the three unusual women. This also meant they didn't know that Itori could turn herself and others unseen at will, which in turn meant that none of them were prepared to go the extra mile, as was necessary when you were dealing with enemies who couldn't be spotted with visual detection methods. For humans the eye was an immensely important part of their ability to sense the world around them: shutting down their visuals was already enough to turn them into helpless, easily ambushed targets.

Itori would find this amusing if she wasn't also painfully aware that her own sensory input was even more reliant on her ears. Of course in her case it was next to impossible to hide from her ears even if you used magic, but other than that the similiarity was blatant.

Once inside the camp Nenet silently headed for her target, one of the two poor sods currently on guard duty for the area behind the barracks. This area was for the most part hidden due to being tucked away behind the biggest building in the camp, which ironically meant that it was hardly defended even though arguably it could be one of the bigger holes in the defences. As it was the two guards weren't exactly on high alert, looking noticeably less on guard than the watchers near what could arguably be called the front gates of the encampment. No doubt they thought that if someone did approach the camp they'd do it from a different direction, or if they did head for the barracks first they'd be easily spotted before they reached the perimeter.

They were about to be in for a particularly rude surprise.

Nenet was already located close to her target, waiting for Victoria to make the first shot. Once the brunette hit the right guard with her sleeping dart the phoenix twisted her body and put all her weight behind a concealed punch straight to the left guard's gut, making her poor victim bend almost literally double as little more than a choked gasp escaped him as within one moment all the air had left his lungs, along with a portion of his last meal. With her target thus occupied by one of the rudest awakenings in the history of civilization the phoenix followed up with an uppercut which broke the man's chin and sent him flying at least one full meter into the air before he collapsed lifelessly onto the ground, alive but in a horrible state. It wasn't like he was in critical condition, but he was out cold, his jaw was shattered and Nenet's first punch had more than likely caused some internal bleeding.

Itori would have to take care of that if she wanted to deliver these slavers in good condition.

Speaking of the nine-tailed fox, once she saw that the two had succeeded in her task she appeared standing right next to the barracks, giving the two of them a silent nod of approval and gratitude before she moved onto the next part of the plan. She motioned for Victoria and Nenet to cover their ears, then softly began to sing, her gentle, lyrical voice having an enchanting shadow to it that made it irresistable to listen to and which seemed to bypass the ears to directly weave its way into your mind. The song was in a strange language, too ancient for even people from the time of legends to know about, but the effects were undeniable: those who heard her song were thrown into a state of utter peace and comfort, their mind at the same time filled with a sensation of peace yet simultaneously devoid of thought, as if submerged in a deep pool of the clearest water.

As the song went on the effect would become stronger, those listening to her song sinking deeper and deeper into a peaceful slumber. Her voice easily wormed its way into the building, bypassing the wooden walls to resonate on a level too low to be noticed, yet impossible to not hear. Because of this it took Itori a while to finish singing all the people inside the barracks to sleep, as at the start she was soothing their subconscious to prevent them becoming alarmed before she raised her voice enough to put their conscious mind to sleep as well.

Once the song was done all the slavers in the barracks would be impossible to wake for at least a couple of hours, their minds having been completely and utterly pacified by the ethereal song.

Which meant the three of them could move onto the next step.

WC: 1,095
PWC: 14,485/12,500
TWC: 28,286/25,000 (Completed)

Only after she had fired the dart did Victoria worry that she had jumped the gun, so to speak. She was worried that she had acted to subdue the sentry before Nenet was ready to make her move, but as it turned out, that was not the case. The phoenix chick was ready and waiting to take down her target and take down her target she did. Nenet punched the left guard in the gut and then followed up with an uppercut to the chin that sent him flying a full meter into the air before he came down upon the snow in a manner that made the brunette wince.

He was badly hurt, but at least he was still alive so that Itori could heal him and take him to the authorities, so the phoenix had not violated their mandate to take the slavers alive.

Once her target had fallen down without making a noise, Victoria turned to the barracks to look for any unpleasant surprises. She was expecting an unpleasant surprise like a slaver who just happened to walk outside at the wrong time and had witnessed the takedown or one who had peered through a window and witnessed men falling over and being punched into the air by entities that could not be seen. Victoria was ready to shoot another slaver and was surprised when instead of a slaver she had spotted Itori, who had moved down from her elevated perch to enact the next step of the carefully laid plan to subdue the entire camp with just three people. The next part of the plan was to disable everyone in the barracks to keep the trio from being overwhelmed during the fighting that was about to kick off in a few minutes.

Victoria picked up on Itori's motions to cover her ears and set down her weapon to do so. The brunette hoped that Nenet would cover her ears in time because fighting off an entire camp of angry slavers was already a tall order, but fighting off an entire camp of slavers with only two people would be nigh-impossible, even for Victoria and Nenet. Once the brunette had done so she watched Itori begin to sing a song in a language she had never heard before. It was undoubtedly a language that was exclusive to Fox Lady and her people... Victoria had heard about people like Fox Lady once in a storybook from Midi Lawrence had read to her, but she had never seen one or heard their language before today.

Once the song was complete Victoria looked towards Fox Lady and equipped her Grenade Launcher for the next part of the plan, which was to begin firing off Tear Gas Grenades to neutralize large groups of enemies while simultaneously drawing their attention. Itori's directive was a good idea because the brunette took a glance at the immediate area and saw that conventional high-explosive rounds would do a lot more harm than good. There was another pitfall to the use of the high-explosive rounds, one that was less obvious than ruining the plan to take slavers alive, to avoid endangering the captives by liberal usage of destructive munitions, or to avoid bringing down an avalanche on everyone in the area.

While the rounds would attract attention from anyone with ears, they were obviously lethal munitions that could shred the targets. They were best saved for dire situations like the trio being about to be overrun by many times their number in angry slavers. Besides, like with all surprise attacks against reasonably smart opponents, a surprise attack only worked once. It was best to lull them into complacency by employing less-than-lethal munitions to make them thing that was all the brunette could fire from her weapon. Then if things got really bad and they were in danger of being overrun, Victoria could employ lethal munitions to their full effect because they were not expected.

Victoria switched from high-explosive to Tear Gas Rounds and took aim at the closest group of slavers she could find. She steadied her aim and was about to fire before the wind shifted and blew back in her face. The brunette frowned as she waited for the wind direction to change before firing off the less-than-lethal projectile. While she waited she turned to Itori and told Fox Lady to get their protection from the tear gas ready. She paused for a few seconds before speaking to make sure that the trio was the only one who would hear them.

"I'm about to fire the tear gas, Itori. Be ready to protect us because the wind isn't doing us any favors." Victoria quietly advised Itori to get the spell ready because the wind was unpredictable. One moment it would blow towards the enemies, then the next it would blow towards the Sabertooth trio, then in yet another it would blow off the side of the cliff. Once the wind blew back towards the slavers and stayed Victoria steadied her aim and fired.

"Here goes." Victoria said to Itori and Nenet. She then fired and the grenade landed softly in the snow just behind the two men standing at the side of the cliff. She waited a few moments to gauge the direction of the wind and fired at another pair of men standing about 100 meters away from the dilapidated building where the captives were believed to have been kept. It too landed softly in the snow and began dispersing its payload of less-than-lethal gas. Maybe she should not have used it on the men facing the cliff since they might stumble off of it in their blindness, but there was no putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

Victoria began looking for more men to target and continued searching as she hoped that the wind would hold off on blowing back into their faces; at the very least she hoped that it would hold until the trio had already drawn out the bulk of the slavers, after which it would not matter quite as much as it did during the critical opening stages of the attack. As it stood the coughing of the men she had already launched a grenade at would likely be enough to alert the others that something was afoot. So far everything was going to plan because Itori was easily the smartest of the trio and she could plan for the long term as opposed to Victoria winging it through everything, but then the brunette remembered something that her adopted father told her long ago about the nature of plans when battle actually began.

"No plan survives contact with the enemy."

Victoria was pretty sure that Itori had planned for any eventuality and had a plan to get them out of this mess should things go south and the slaver army be much bigger and tougher than planned for. The brunette needed to trust in Fox Lady's plan and carry out her parts of it. Victoria owed Itori that much for putting up with her attitude earlier. Itori was well within her rights as a Guild Ace to kick Victoria off the mission and send her packing back to the Guild Hall to await judgment, but Itori had kept her on. Now Victoria needed to demonstrate that the faith Fox Lady had put in her was not misplaced.

[Post Word Count: 1,231]
[Victoria's Word Count: 15,016/12,500]
[Total Word Count: 29,517/25,000]

The language in which Itori song was one ancient and extinct, the tenko the only creature left alive to speak it. The song was a lullaby, although so far as the nine-tailed fox was concerned it was perfectly suited for helping adults sleep as well. She didn't need others to understand the words if they but understood the meaning, and with Itori's enchanted voice doing the singing there was no way that the slavers wouldn't feel the gentle arms of sleep wrap around them and drag them into a blissful oblivion.

Singing like this made Itori think a little bit about her past, about how the reason nobody would be able to understand her song was because she was so old that anyone she might have known back then was long since dead. She knew that for many that would be a dreadful thought, to live for so long that everyone you knew and loved had long since passed away. There were times that it could feel sad or lonely. However Itori also knew that, as long as she safeguarded the sanctity of the soul, nobody ever truly disappeared. Through their souls they lived eternally, be it reincarnated into another form or in some sort of afterlife or another.

And beyond that while the old things may fade away there were always new things. Sometimes they were completely foreign, sometimes they were new versions of what she knew, but for a mind such as her it was always worth appreciating. Eternity was only a curse if you couldn't let go of the past, and Itori was very good at living in the present. Ironic, considering that she was quite likely the strongest connection to the far past for anyone who knew her. Nobody ever asked her, but if they just knew the stories she could tell if they but asked... Well, she wouldn't tell them everything. She wouldn't want them to dwell too long on that which had long since stopped mattering to the people of the present, and some things were better left unknown. In fact she sometimes wished she could forget some of the things she knew, but that was an impossible request.

With the song finished Itori walked back to Victoria and Nenet, signalling for the brunette to hold off on firing her weapon just yet as she reapplied the illusion that would render Nenet unnoticed. The phoenix could most likely fight her way through the camp if truly necessary, but the safety of the slaves was of the highest priority so the faster the fiery birdgirl got there the better. Nodding invisibly Nenet wandered off, heading towards the prison located on the other sign of the encampment.

Itori then turned back to Victoria and nodded. "Please fire when you are prepared." As she spoke the wind seemed to die down, leaving the gungirl to launch the teargas grenade whenever she was ready. Itori meanwhile placed her hands together, then released a pulse of shimmering white light that manifested itself into the shape of a ghostly dome that surrounded the two of them, the ethereal light that formed the barrier also giving birth to strange shapes and forms on the surface. One might even see people in those shapes, but never clear enough to make out any distinctive features.

With the tenko's Spirit Ward active neither teargas nor hostile attacks would be able to enter the dome, so Victoria could go wild with both her grenades and her other weaponry to subdue the slavers. Who, obviously, weren't very happy when suddenly projectiles came flying out of nowhere to release a gas that made their eyes water and had them nearly coughing their lungs out. The silver-white dome was a dead giveaway, so while Nenet took care of the slaves Victoria and Itori would have to endure the onslaught of the slavers, who were quickly raising their voices in alarm where the tear gas hadn't managed to silence them yet.

Of course the reinforcements the slavers expected to gain from the barracks didn't come, those who had been resting inside now stuck in a deep slumber they wouldn't get out of unless woken in a much ruder manner, but the other men who had been on guard did take note and began to congregrate, heading for the two mages who were clearly launching a two-woman assault on the camp. Alarms were raised and thugs grabbed their weapons, from mundane things such as swords and axes and bows to things more worrisome, flintlocke pistols and staffs and enchanted weapons meant to inflict damage much worse than simple flesh wounds. While this wasn't some established organized crime ring they still had been doing well enough that they could afford to invest in some good equipment in case they ran into opposition, and now they'd get the opportunity to see how well their preparations fared against two powerful legal mages.

The first attacks bounced off against Itori's barrier, several arrows and one fireball that made the ground shake as it exploded into a thundering conflagration. They didn't even leave a mark on the Spirit Ward, but they were only a sign of worse to come as the slavers quickly approached in numbers. Those who were carrying normal weapons circled out to surround the two mages, whereas those with ranged weapons kept battering the shield. One bandit, a staff-wielding brute who also had several engraved bracelets, was summoning strange black-purple orbs that appeared to claw at the surrounding air, reeking of malice and twisted magics. Itori narrowed her eyes at that, then looked at Victoria.

"My ward will not be taken down easily, but I would still urge you to make haste in incapacitating as many of them as possible." Her Spirit Ward was potent, but to maximize its strength Itori had to keep her attention on it. Which meant that it was up to Victoria to engage the slaves from the safety of the barrier. Luckily her own projectiles and magic would pass through the ghostly veil untouched, allowing her to attack freely without worry of return fire.

WC: 1,017
PWC: 15,502/12,500
TWC: 30,534/25,000

Victoria was thankful that she had held off on firing the first shots of the conflict because Itori had to reapply the stealth field that had worn off on Nenet. The brunette was intrigued to learn that the invisibility was not a once-per-day spell but one that could be re-applied as needed, which was good because Nenet would need all the concealment she could get. A phoenix chick with fiery wings and bright clothing was not the stealthiest thing in existence, but neither was Victoria herself. Victoria's idea of stealth was wearing camouflage clothing and getting close to her target before firing, but most of the time that simple approach was all that she needed.

Victoria was glad that the wind held off long enough for the tear gas to disperse and for some of the men to be affected by it, meaning that all the time waiting to fire had not been wasted. More importantly, the tear gas would did not backfire on the trio by blowing in their faces and incapacitating them instead of the slavers. Getting caught in her own tear gas would have been a humiliating accident and certainly would not have done Itori or Nenet any favors either; as tough and as capable in magic as they were, Itori and Nenet still needed to see to be able to fight. Once the coughing started the alarm was raised and a gaggle of slavers started crawling out of the woodwork with a variety of weapons that indicated they were not just opportunists out for a quick buck. These slavers were serious about their trade and were armed to match.

Victoria saw that the slavers were wielding an assortment of arms like mundane bows, axes, and arrows plus more expensive and more effective armaments like flintlock pistols, staves, and even a few enchanted weapons. While the slavers did not have a "standard" weapon and had armed themselves according to preference and aptitude, they had enough good-quality weapons to make this fight more of a challenge than Victoria had anticipated. It was a good thing that Itori, that mage for all occasions, had created a shimmering dome shield to protect them from return fire while Nenet went to rescue the captives held in the rickety wooden building. The brunette watched a stray shot or two bounce off the shield and was moved to comment to Itori about the situation.

"Looks like we've kicked over the hornet's nest." Victoria remarked to Fox Lady as she took a moment to think over what weapon to use. She could either continue to use the Grenade Launcher with Bean Bag Rounds or she could drop the Grenade Launcher and switch to the Tranquilizer Rifle. The wind was starting to shift and blow in their faces again, but Bean Bag Rounds were not dependent on wind, just good aim on Victoria's part. She would stick with the Grenade Launcher until the need to use something else arose.

"Switching to Bean Bag Rounds." Victoria whispered to Itori before shifting to the less-than-lethal munitions. She made the switch and took aim at a black-bearded man standing 75 meters away who was wearing a black fur hat and wielding a flintlock pistol. Victoria took careful aim at his head and fired a Bean Bag Round that soared through the air and hit him squarely in the forehead, causing him to fire his weapon up into the air and fall onto his back with a big red mark on his forehead. He had fired his shot and was slow to recover from the hit, but that did not mean that the other slavers were just standing around waiting to be shot. The ones with normal weapons had pushed in to surround the pair and cut off their escape while those with ranged weapons continued to plink away at the shield in the hopes of bringing it down.

Victoria saw that her sniping individual men with Bean Bag Rounds was not going to work, so she would need to switch back to Tear Gas and break up the cluster of men surrounding them so that if the shield dropped it would not be an instant game over for the Sabertooth mages. Victoria quietly switched back to Tear Gas and fired a round that plopped into the snow in front of men wielding axes and staves standing 50 meters away. One brave slaver picked it up to toss it back before the gas dispersed, but the brunette had anticipated that trick and fired a Bean Bag Round that hit the man square in the ample stomach. He doubled over and dropped the Tear Gas grenade, letting the tear gas disperse and affect a group of slavers who withdrew from the conflict wiping their eyes and coughing violently.

Victoria saw a flintlock pistol shot PING off the barrier in front of Itori and knew that the slavers had cottoned onto the fact that Itori was the mage responsible for the shimmering shield that thwarted their attacks. Victoria needed to protect Itori because Fox Lady had to focus all her effort and energy on keeping the shield up; if the shield went down things would get very ugly very fast. The brunette aimed her weapon at a pistol-wielding clean-shaved man with an eyepatch and let loose a Bean Bag Round that hit him in the face, knocking him out instantly. A rain of arrows landed in front of Itori and Victoria and a fireball crashed against the shield to no effect, but Victoria knew that Itori's shield would not last forever... she needed to find a way to take more of the slavers out of play, but they had already learned to anticipate Tear Gas and were thus on guard for more of it.

Victoria dropped her Grenade Launcher and picked up the Tranquilizer Rifle to pick off that magician slaver. She spied him standing a short distance away from a cluster of archers 100 meters to the northwest and focused on him. He spotted her and quickly began preparing to cast another fireball while Victoria took careful aim and prepared a Lights Out dart. The brunette took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger, sending the dart flying into the flesh of the collarbone left exposed by the wind blowing his jacket open just enough to provide a small but noticeable gap. The man looked at her and waved his hand to cast the fireball before the tranquilizer took effect and brought him down; the spell was thrown off course and landed just behind a trio of ax-wielding men thirty meters in front of him, caused them to run for it to avoid getting engulfed in the exploding fireball.

"Heh heh." Victoria laughed at the sight of the slavers running away from their colleague's spell. She then focused on the task of getting rid of more of the slavers with ranged weapons. However, she could not ignore the men with ordinary weapons just waiting for the shield to go down so that they could chop Itori and Victoria to pieces. She needed to clear some of them away but how was she going to clear them away if they had caught onto the Tear Gas/Bean Bag Round combo?

She could use a Claymore Burst, but that was a lethal spell and the directive to use non-lethal and less-than-lethal magic remained in effect. She could use a Taser Spark to hit a man with the force of a taser, but Taser Spark could only affect one target at a time. Her Tranquilizer Rifle could reliably knock out men with a single dart, but it did not have the quickest rate of fire at a time when she needed to subdue men quickly and easily. The brunette would have to think of a new plan because she did not know how much longer Itori could keep the shield up in the face of persistent opposition that was determined to wait out their protection before making a decisive move.

Another flintlock pistol round PINGed off of the shield and Victoria found and knocked out the shooter standing 50 meters away with a Lights Out dart to the forehead. While the mage and three of the pistol-wielding slavers were unconscious, the archers were still active and firing arrows at the Sabertooth mages. Victoria needed to take them down next. The brunette hoped that Nenet would hurry up and take care of business while most of the slavers were occupied.

[Post Word Count: 1,415]
[Victoria's Word Count: 16,431/12,500]
[Total Word Count: 31,949/25,000]

Itori closed her eyes as she focused on maintaining the barrier, relying on her ears to keep an eye on her surroundings. Victoria was beginning to get to work on getting rid of the enemies, but it was a slow going. Apparently the brunette wasn't equipped for taking down large groups with non-lethal means. The tenko would have to inform her that it was important for a mage of Sabertooth to be capable of large area suppression after all of this was over: she didn't want Victoria to end up feeling forced to use lethal measures because she wasn't prepared for a safer approach.

However for now the barrier would hold: with her not having to focus on anything else Itori could fully turn her attention to the barrier, supplying it a steady stream of mana to keep it reinforced and repairing any damage that might be done to it by the assailants. The physical weapons had little effect on the spectral barrier, but the magical barrage packed a punch: one fireball already had Itori wincing, but when that brute of a spellcaster at the edge of the crowd lounched his dark spheres they began to eat into the shield. To counteract that malicious effect the nine-tailed fox released a cleaning burst, the vile dark that had attached itself to her ethereal dome weakening and then slowly fading away.

"I should be able to keep this barrier up for a while longer, but I would still suggest that you speed up your elimination of our adversaries. If you can disable sufficient amounts that we are no longer in danger of being overwhelmed I can return my focus to the offence, after which the rest should be relatively easy." The fact that Itori was stuck channelling the barrier meant that their offensive potential was drastically affected, especially since it meant that the tenko couldn't boost Victoria's capabilities or spawn illusions that would confuse and deceive the slavers. "Mayhaps it would be better if you focused less on precise attacks: we should avoid killing, but burn wounds and broken bones are acceptable if needed. From the looks of it they should be able to survive such wounds without any difficulty."

She was a bit worried that if Victoria kept going at her current pace there would be too many slavers left at the time that she would be forced to cancel her barrier. While she wouldn't be helpless against a flood of rather weak opponents it would make things decidedly difficult, so she'd rather not have to deal with that possible future if it could be avoided.

She also hoped that Nenet was having an easier time of it. The phoenix didn't have much to do other than sneak in and secure the captives, but if she got caught before she was in position she could also get into some serious trouble. The tenko had plenty of trust in her friend but it was still a tricky situation all around...

---

Nenet meanwhile moved invisibly through the camp, although she stuck to the edge and slowly circled around towards the place where the slaves must be held rather than moving in a straight line. The illusion that Itori had cast on her wouldn't cover her footprints, and the phoenix didn't want to be shot out of the air should someone manage to detect her.

Fortunately Itori and Victoria had successfully drawn the attention of roughly the entire camp, so the phoenix didn't have to worry about anyone noticing the trail of talonprints. Clearly the slavers weren't happy to have two women sneak into their camp so effortlessly, so even the guards had gone to where her two friends were keeping them busy.

Well, almost all the guards. There were still two slavers standing in front of the building housing the captives, clearly there in case someone tried anything funny while the rest of the camp was occupied. That was definitely a proactive move and a display of forethought, but it looked like these thugs still weren't aware that the three invaders were capable of messing with perception the way Itori did. Invisibility was a nightmare for anyone who wasn't prepared to deal with it: it made for ideal ambushes.

Nenet first quietly approached the building from behind, then flew over it until she was standing on the roof. Taking a deep breath she gathered her energy, then raised her hands and shot a fireball at both of the guards. While the two men were still crying out in surprise and reeling from the sudden attack the phoenix jumped down, grabbing one of the men by the arm and slamming him against the other, swinging him almost like a club. Once the two guards were jumbled together Nenet grinned as she brought her fist back and punched them both, sending them flying for at least a meter before they collapsed onto the ground in a big tangle of limbs.

Finishing off the job by repeatedly kicking them in the head to knock them out Nenet headed into the building, using a flame to illuminate the interior. Many captives all right, all chained up and spread out in a random and uncoordinated pattern across the floor. Many were clinging to each other, scared by what was going on outside. Nenet's invisibility had disappeared when she assaulted the two guards, so she just grinned even wider and pointed at herself.

"Relax. My friends and I'll have you out of here in a jiffy. Just give them the time to say thanks to your hosts and we'll be on our way." There really shouldn't be anything out there that Itori and Victoria couldn't handle, so the phoenix didn't have much to do but to wait and knock any slaver that tried to get inside the building.

"I don't suppose you people know where the keys to your chains are? Things would get a lot easier if you did." The confused stares and the headshakes told Nenet more than enough. Folding her arms she shrugged. "Bummer. We'll have to wait then." If the slaves knew where the keys were kept maybe she could have started leading them out of the camp already... but alas, that wasn't the case.

WC: 1,040
PWC: 16,542/12,500
TWC: 32,989/25,000

Victoria saw another enemy mage readying a fireball near the back of a crowd of club-wielding men and focused on bringing him down. She carefully aimed her Tranquilizer Rifle at him and fired a Lights Out dart, but just when the dart was about to hit one of the club-wielding men deliberately jumped in front of the projectile and took it to protect the mage, wobbling in place while the mage finished preparing the fireball. He fell down and passed out just as the mage launched the fireball at Victoria and Itori; it hit the barrier with no effect other than to send out a spray of sparks that fizzled out on the snow, but the brunette knew that it was taxing for Itori to maintain their protection.

"Damn it." Victoria muttered to herself. The slavers were getting wise to what she was trying to do and had started to protect their mages from her attacks. Victoria clenched her teeth and focused again on the same man, but now more of the club-wielding men were standing in a triangular formation directly in front of the mage, making a direct shot difficult at best.

Victoria took a moment to think about what to do. If she fired a Bean Bag Round, the slavers would only block it, so she needed to use an attack that they could not block with their bodies. Tear Gas was the obvious answer, but the wind was not cooperating with her. It was blowing towards the mages and she did not know if Itori's barrier could protect against Tear Gas as well as spells and flintlock pistol shots. It was at that moment that Itori made a politely worded request for the brunette to speed up dealing with the slavers so that Fox Lady could go on the offensive. That request left her no choice but to make some fancy trick shots and hope that the wind did not pick this time to blow towards the slavers.

"OK, I'm about to speed things up. You may want to cover your nose, though." Victoria hinted at her next course of action to Fox Lady. Victoria was about to fire Tear Gas grenades and make them land a good distance behind the slavers and let the wind carry it to them. While it would not be as potent as landing a Tear Gas grenade directly at their feet, it should be enough to distract them while Itori went on the offensive. Here went nothing.

Aiming one last time at the mage, Victoria fired a Lights Out dart and like last time a burly slaver stepped in to take the dart for the mage who was readying yet another fireball to lob at the Sabertooth mages. He wobbled and staggered, then fell onto his back and passed out. Victoria then set the Tranquilizer Rifle aside and picked up her Grenade Launcher to put her hastily conceived plan into action. The slaver mage launched the fireball with the same result as the last time; Victoria held off on firing until the shower of sparks cleared, then fired a grenade that was intended to land about fifteen meters behind the mage and his human shields.

It soared in a perfect arc and embedded itself in the snow fifteen meters behind them. Victoria then turned her attention to the gaggle of slavers on her left and did a quick estimate of where she would need to aim in order to drop the gas grenade in a spot where the Tear Gas would blow back on them. The brunette determined that the best spot was one about twenty meters away from them between the barracks and the building that Nenet had entered while she and Itori held the attention of the main slaver army, but before she pulled the trigger a thought hit her.

If she fired in that area, the slavers might notice that the door to their makeshift prison had been opened and would send men to check it out, resulting in Nenet and the captives being put into a very bad situation.

However, her trick shot to stop the mage and his human shields had landed in a direction that might draw their attention anyway, so she would just have to be fast on the trigger and hope for the best.

Victoria would just have to forgo the fancy trick shot and go for the direct approach with the shot aimed at the gaggle to her left. The men knew what was about to happen and shifted their weapons to a two-handed grip; they were going to try and bat back the grenades towards Victoria, but she soon improvised a possible way around that defense. She would fire the Tear Gas grenade into the face of one of them, then use Bean Bag Rounds to keep the rest off balance until the gas dispersed.

Victoria aimed at a club-wielding man with an eyepatch over his left eye and fired the Tear Gas grenade. He took a swing with his club that was too soon and thus missed the round, which nailed him straight in the face and elicited a scream of pain as he dropped his weapon and clutched his nose. The two men beside him scrambled to pick up the grenade and either throw it away or throw it back at the Sabertooth mages. Victoria fired Bean Bag Rounds that hit one man in the ribcage and the other in the side of the head, making them stagger into each other and fall to the ground. Unable to stop the gas grenade from dispersing its tear gas, the crowd on the left was soon reduced to coughing and rubbing their eyes while stumbling around to escape the area.

Victoria then shifted her attention to the right and had to think of a way to get around their defense. Again she could not use any fancy trick shots, so the direct approach would have to do. Victoria switched things up a bit by firing Bean Bag Rounds at the men who stood ready with their clubs as makeshift bats. While they were busy swatting at the rounds or being hit by them Victoria fired a Tear Gas grenade directly into the middle of them, then fired a second one just off to their left to force them to split their attention between the two projectiles.

While they scrambled to stop them Victoria switched to Bean Bag Rounds and began firing at the men to stall them until the tear gas got them. She hit one man in the side of the head just as his hand touched the grenade in the middle, then hit a second in the face as the first one staggered away from the grenade. The grenade in the middle went off and so did the one on the left just as some poor sap bent over to grab it with both hands.

Victoria paused to take a breath and saw that many of the men were coughing and rubbing their watery eyes, most of them except for ranged weapon users and mages on the edges. Victoria dropped her Grenade Launcher and picked up the Tranquilizer Rifle to deal with a few of them. Her first target was that annoying fireball mage she had targeted earlier.

Without his human shields to stand tall, he was vulnerable. The brunette aimed and fired a Lights Out dart that hit him in the left shoulder. He still went on with preparing his next spell, but the dart soon took effect and he fell over unconscious. A flintlock pistol fired and the ball PINGed off the shield. Victoria located the source of the shot and fired a Lights Out dart at a tall, slender man garbed in brown wearing a fur hat frantically reloading the weapon. She struck him in the left arm and he flinched, then looked at her and staggered five steps forward before falling onto the snow and passing out.

"OK, Itori. If we keep this up we just might be able to pull this off." Victoria opined to Itori with hope on her voice. She hoped that Nenet was doing OK. Maybe now that a good deal of the slavers were currently affected by Tear Gas, Fox Lady could do her thing and take even more of them out of play.

[Post Word Count: 1,394]
[Victoria's Word Count: 17,825/12,500]
[Total Word Count: 34,383/25,000]

While Victoria was busy doing her best to clear out the assaulting slavers there wasn't much Itori could do but keep the shield going and hope that her companion would weaken their offence faster than they could tire the tenko out. Of course as a nine-tailed fox her energy reserves were immense, but when you were up against an entire horde of enemies, including some mages, your mana could be drained at an astounding pace.

At least Victoria acknowledged that the current approach wasn't working: it was admirable how she'd been doing her best to take the slavers down with minimal injury, as Itori had originally requested, but there was a time where you had to acknowledge that your initial assessment was off and you had to recalculate. Itori was capable of healing most injuries: in fact she could even deny death given the right circumstances. The health of the slavers was not so important that they had to be afraid of getting a little rough as long as they avoided fatal injury.

If Itori had been aware that Victoria's greatest worry was that the tear gas would blow back onto them she would have told the brunette that she didn't need to worry too much: her barrier was perfectly capable of blocking out the tear gas. She could regulate what went through the barrier and what was kept out, but given that it was a magical barrier something like a gas attack wasn't going to get free passage.

She watched as Victoria began to use her beanbag rounds to keep the thugs busy even as she launched several teargas grenades. It was smart thinking on the brunette's behalf to make sure the thugs couldn't get rid of the grenades at their leisure: while the barrier would prevent the grenades being thrown back it would make the attempt at gassing the slavers a wasted effort. As it was Itori could see that most of the slavers that were still standing got caught in the gas that was released by the multitude of grenades, their eyes watering and their throats constricting as they coughed and cried involuntarily.

Tear gas really was one of those things which sounded nice on paper and turned out to be quite cruel once you used it in practice. Itori would have felt sympathy for the slavers if it wasn't for the fact that she had a rather low opinion of those who would treat others as property. It was a bit of a sore point with her because she'd seen many a life waste away because of that kind of attitude, and unlike herself most people had a limited lifespan so having someone else ruin that limited lifespan got her rather annoyed.

Once it looked like enough of the enemies had been disabled that the barrier wasn't in danger of falling Itori diverted some of her focus and mana to other purposes. "Well done. Let us see if we can bring an end to this conflict." Offence wasn't her forte, but with the enemy in disarray...

A single ghostly blue flame appeared above Itori. It was quickly joined by several others. Within mere seconds there would be over a dozen foxfires dancing in the air, with more forming even as the first flew outwards. Initially flying upwards the flames would curve down like artillery projectiles, zeroing in on various of the slavers and striking them dead on while they were still trying to get rid of the tears that were filling their vision.

Those who were hit by Itori's spirit flames would first feel a burning sensation, but rather than burning away their skin and flesh it would consume their physical and mental energy, causing them to collapse and lose consciousness. With more and more flames on the way an expanding wave of fully incapacitated slavers would come to pass.

Except for the mage who had been throwing those ominous dark spells. That one got hit by several flames and immediately fell over like a puppet with its strings cut.

---

As Nenet guarded the slaves she poked her head out of the hut to look at the situation outside. Seeing the large amount of tear gas that was filling the air, combined with the blue flames that were raining down upon the unfortunate slavers, she figured that it wouldn't take much longer before the two mages would have wrapped this entire operation up and they could get out of here.

"Wait. Where did that guy come from?" The phoenix frowned as she saw another figure head towards where Itori and Victoria were fighting. He had a similar built to the other slavers, except he was a bit shorter. On the other hand his equipment looked like it was of better quality than that of the other slavers, with runes inscribed on the metal plates. The three-headed flail he was holding was also worrisome, the way that each of the heads glowed with magic.

"That looks like a fun fight... Eh, I'm sure Ito and Vicky can handle that."

WC: 842
PWC: 17,384/11,000
TWC: 35,225/22,000

Victoria wondered if she had fired enough Tear Gas grenades into the fray to appreciably thin out the slavers and allow Itori to work more of her Fox Lady magic to deal with the rest of the men still on their feet. She had fired enough of the less-than-lethal munitions to saturate a quarter of the area in tear gas and no one had died from running off a cliff while blinded or had suffered any other accidental deaths, but plenty of the men were still standing and could pose a threat if the gas dispersed before they could be taken care of. As it turned out, she had thinned them out enough for Itori to do her thing. Itori stepped up to the plate and delivered on her promise to deal with the rest in spectacular Fox Lady fashion.

Itori started out with one dancing blue flame and quickly added others to it, then fired them in a fashion comparable to human artillery batteries firing concentrated barrages of shells. It was such an impressive sight that Victoria had stopped looking for targets and watched the show as the blue flames rained down on targets in smooth arcs and hit them dead center with impeccable precision. Instead of burning them like she had expected, the affected men looked like they were somehow being drained of energy and passing out. Victoria was impressed by Itori's display of magic and even more impressed with the results; she had even managed to knock out that annoying mage who had kept lobbing fireballs at them like he was getting paid by the casting.

"Nice work, Itori." Victoria complimented the Sabertooth Ace on her flashy but effective magic that had subdued the opposition without killing them. The brunette had yet another reason to add to the growing list of Reasons Not To Piss Off Itori. While she had not rained divine fire down on the slavers, what she had rained down on them was a good enough substitute to give the brunette plenty of reason not to incur her wrath. Victoria looked around the area and saw nothing but unconscious enemies and snow.

The brunette took a deep breath and relaxed for a moment. The brunette and the fox lady had just pulled off the unlikely and had subdued many times their number in opponents without killing a single one of them. They had not taken any appreciable hits and were in very good shape to deal with any stragglers, assuming that there were stragglers to begin with. Victoria assumed that the entire camp had been cleaned out, but she knew all too well what "assuming" did. They just might be able to free the captives without further incident, but that hope was dashed when the brunette spotted a short but well-equipped man striding towards them with a look that meant business.

He was equipped in plate armor with runes engraved on them and in his hand was a flail with three heads. It was an unusual choice of weapon, but then the Sabertooth mage noticed that each head was glowing with magic, a feature that lent the antiquated weapon much more punch than it first looked like it was capable of delivering. Victoria was not sure what to do to take the guy down because that armor could laugh off Bean Bag Rounds and Tranquilizer Darts. A Taser Spark or two might be able to do it, but he might be able to use the heads of the flail as an improvised shield.

"There's a dude over there!" Victoria pointed out the armored individual to Itori and carefully aimed her Grenade Launcher, then fired a Bean Bag Round to see what he could do to stop it. He began to whirl the flail around in front of him and one of the three heads hit the Bean Bag Round, smashing it open and spilling the beans onto the snow while the man laughed at the attempt. He was definitely smarter than the average slaver by even thinking of that to defeat the less-than-lethal round. The brunette would need to go back to the drawing board.

"I don't know what to do to stop him. I can't get a good shot at him with non-lethal weapons and he's approaching fast. We need to either take that weapon out of play or remove that armor." Victoria said to Itori. The brunette needed to find a good weapon and find one fast before he could introduce the two Sabertooth mages to the business end of the flail. He had no exposed flesh to hit with a Tranquilizer Rifle dart, Bean Bag Rounds were a waste of time to aim and use, and Tear Gas was just too slow to take effect on him before he could close in. A Taser Spark might work, but first they needed to at least get rid of the flail so that he could not shield himself with it.

Maybe Itori could pull another rabbit out of her hat and come up with a way to defeat the armored man.

[Post Word Count: 848]
[Victoria's Word Count: 18,673/12,500]
[Total Word Count: 36,073/25,000]

Once her foxfires had struck down all the slavers who hadn't been brought low yet by Victoria's shots Itori exhaled and stopped her barrage, the blue flames dying out as the tenko conserved her mana. She wasn't feeling winded yet, but keeping up the defences while an entire horde of slavers had been assaulting the two of them definitely had an effect on her reserves. With some luck she wouldn't have to pull off anything like that again today... although on the flipside she'd been able to drain a siphon a good chunk of energy from the slavers once her flames began to hit. Although it might be better if she didn't explain to the brunette that part of the purpose of her attack had been to steal the energy of their adversaries: people tended to get a bit anxious when they learned she could do that.

"Thank you." She smiled in response to Victoria's compliment. "Hopefully we successfully drew the attention of all the slavers: the situation could become problematic if there were still pockets of resistance left." She surveyed their surroundings, but continued speaking to Victoria. "I admire your dedication to avoid lethal measures, but I would advise you to consider developing more non-lethal methods for engaging adversaries with: as legal mages we are expected to incapacitate, not kill." She wasn't trying to scold Victoria, but it couldn't be denied that it looked like the gunmage was having serious issues finding methods to fight when she wasn't allowed to murder. "Especially when it comes to subduing larger groups: as you yourself have already noted the tear gas is potent but unreliable."

It was at that point that the armoured slaver got close enough for her and Victoria to pick up on his presence. The nine-tailed fox frowned as she could tell that this man had quite a lot of magic on him, even if it resided in his equipment rather than his body. Casting her gaze towards him she noted the enchantments on his armour: aside from strengthening the metal and leather against physical attacks they also boosted resistance towards magical attacks and would protect the wearer from most afflictions magic could inflict on someone, such as curses, diseases and various other ailments. Putting him to sleep definitely wouldn't work. "...This might be a problem." She wasn't oriented towards combat: with this guy's armour protecting him she couldn't immediately think of a way to disable him.

The man, however, wasn't going to wait for the two of them to figure out how to answer his arrival: once he was close enough he pressed his toes against the snow-covered ground and charged them, spinning the flail for momentum as the glowing heads left a trail behind them. Itori's eyes widened for a moment before she touched Victoria's shoulder. A quick magic enchantment would give the brunette enhanced speed, which she'd probably need to stay out of range. Itori herself lept to the side, in time to evade the incoming attack as the armoured slaver slammed the three-headed flail into the spot where she had been standing.

As the heads hit the ground there was a sharp crack and a roar. There was a discharge of lightning from one head, an eruption of flame from another, and the last head produced a shockwave. The snow around the impact instantly vaporated and the dirt underneath formed a crater as it was compressed. The message was clear: anyone who got hit by that flail would be scorched, electrocuted and crushed.

Keeping her distance Itori launched several blue flames towards the man, but they couldn't get a hold on his enchanted armour, dying out futilely. Given that upon impact his flail would produce such destructive effects the tenko didn't want to engage him in melee combat, but she couldn't think of much she could throw at him from a distance either. He was a veritable juggernaut, lifting his flail and beginning to spin it again as this time he began to charge Victoria.

"Miss Sheridan! Forget about non-lethal measures for the moment, attempt to destroy his armour instead!" With how durable the stuff was Itori doubted that the man would die quickly. Most likely his armour could easily shrug off lethal ammunition, at least for a while. After that... Well, with some luck Itori would be able to find a way to take him down without killing him, but if this man had managed to make himself so difficult to deal with that they couldn't capture him alive she wasn't going to lose much sleep over it.

WC: 764
PWC: 18,148/11,000
TWC: 36,837/25,000

Victoria was surprised to see that Itori's Fox Lady Magic could do nothing against the walking tin can heading their way, but since he was either the leader of the slavers or very high in their hierarchy, he could afford to commission armor resistant to both physical and magical attack. The brunette had acquired the Azure Armor that was believed to have once been owned by a famous demon slayer who went into Infernus itself to stop a demonic incursion into Earthland. Considering the variety of enemies she went up against on a regular basis, such an armor was invaluable to the brunette since her main magic was exclusively offensive in nature.

And what an offense Victoria had. She had several weapons that allowed her to engage multiple opponents at once and she had a specialist anti-armor weapon in the form of a Rocket Launcher. By using its Bunker Buster rocket she could damage armored opponents, structures, and even threaten armored vehicles. And if that weapon failed, her ace in the hole was her Beam Cannon spell, which fired concentrated energy that could punch through armor and living tissue with equal ease.

"Yeah, I'll have to work on getting some more non-lethal measures." Victoria said quickly since they did not have time for an in-depth discussion of the subject with the armored dude clanking towards them. He shrugged off all of Fox Lady's attempts to subdue him with status effects and she did not seem to be geared towards offense, so it fell to Victoria to find a way to stop the man without killing him. But how?

If Itori's status effects had failed, Victoria's Taser Spark would not do any better. Neither would her Tranquilizer Rifle; the darts it fired needed to hit exposed flesh in order for the sedatives to work. Tear Gas would be a waste of time because his armor likely had magical protection that worked like a hazmat suit. What could she do to get through his armor?

Itori gave her an idea... and an order.

Itori had given Victoria express permission to temporarily eschew non-lethal measures in favor of taking the armor out of play no matter what it took. The brunette did not crack a smile or utter something witty. She simply dispelled any current weapons she had out and brought out her Rocket Launcher. She took a step to the right and then stepped back to avoid catching Itori in the backblast that was the result of firing a rocket.

"OK, Itori. I'm about to try and punch a hole in his armor. I recommend you don't stand right behind me when I fire this thing 'cause the backblast is really hot." Victoria warned her companion to stay well clear of the brunette. Once she had given the warning Victoria aimed carefully and steadied herself, then fired a Bunker Buster rocket with a gray tip directly at the armored man. He was so sure that his armor would protect him that he did not even bother to dodge the projectile... even if he wanted to dodge it would have been a difficult feat since the rocket was fired at high speed and the Bandolier only boosted its speed. There was an explosion and a lot of smoke.

Victoria held her breath for a moment. She had just used a projectile intended for use against structures and vehicles against a heavily armored person. She hoped that she had not accidentally blasted him into a crimson mist... not that she would mind too much since the man was a slaver. However, Itori had wanted to take the man alive and deliver him to justice. If he had been blasted into a crimson mist there was no way to accomplish that goal.

The wind picked up and blew away the smoke from the site where the rocket had hit. Victoria saw that standing in the middle of a patch of melted snow was a human figure who was hunched over. The man was still alive, just badly winded from the impact of the Bunker Buster. Then she saw the front of his armor, which was badly cracked around where the rocket had hit.

There was a hole about the size of a standard manhole cover in the front of it!

"OK Itori, here's your chance!" Victoria said simply, keeping her Rocket Launcher on standby in case he got the bright idea to turn around and turn his back to protect his exposed torso. Now that she had fulfilled her goal of taking part of his armor out of play, she would leave it to Itori to subdue him. Fox Lady was able to think so far ahead of the brunette that she probably had a good spell or two already picked out for just that purpose.

[Post Word Count: 801]
[Victoria's Word Count: 19,474/12,500]
[Total Word Count: 37,638/25,000]

Itori nodded as Victoria took her words to heart and changed her equipment into something meant to pack a little bit more firepower. She would have liked to finish this job without resorting to such measures, but whoever this man was he clearly wasn't going to make things easy for the two of them. Fortunately that same magic armour which the tenko couldn't crack should also protect him from the worst of what Victoria was about to do: anything else Itori should be able to fix without much issue... after she subdued him the rest of the way of course. She might be merciful but she wasn't going to heal someone while they were still trying to attack her.

With the warning given Itori distanced herself, each time her feet touched the ground jumping further backwards until she was far enough away that even the shockwave from Victoria's weapon shouldn't be an issue. She wasn't terrible familiar with the kind of equipment that the brunette used, but she could hear from her companion's words and thoughts that this was going to be noisy and possibly messy. As she waited for Victoria to fire she realized that some of the fallen slavers might also be in danger: her own magic had drained them of most of their magic and life force, which rendered them harmless but which also made them more vulnerable.

Holding her white sword in one hand she motioned with the other, a soft glow enveloping her nine tails for a moment. Around the armoured and armed slaver the unconscious bodies of his compatriots were grabbed by invisible hands and swiftly dragged away, in time to pull them into the safe zone as Victoria fired her bazooka and the deadly projectile went straight for the final enemy.

Confident in the quality of his enchanted equipment the slaver wasn't so stupid as to think he could ignore the woman shooting such powerful ammunition at him: he'd endure this blast and then run her down. He was used to being able to get away with that sort of tactic: out of all the slavers he was the best at what he did, the only one who'd been smart enough to carefully save up all his money to buy the best armour he could get his hands on. The others might spend their time on booze and similar frivolous articles of entertainment, but he brought in the best slaves and sold them for a high price.

Unfortunately he had several underestimated his opponents. While he was proficient at using his magic armour and weapons he wasn't much of a mage himself, and thus wasn't aware of the drastic difference in power between him and these two ladies who had invaded the encampment. He'd thought that they'd dealt with his buddies through trickery, exploiting their carelessness and overconfidence.

He hadn't imagined that Victoria would be able to casually fire shells that could level an entire building.

The explosion enveloped the man completely. Where the resulting shockwave reached Itori the ripple in the air instead turned into a soft aurora which quickly faded away, the area directly behind her unaffected with herself not sustaining any harm worse than her hair and clothes being thrown into disarray.

From behind the tenko came the wind which blew away the resulting smoke, revealing the man to have been brought to heel. He wasn't out of the fight yet, but right now he was out of breath and winded, and his armour was no longer impenetrable.

Disappearing in a flash of silver Itori reappeared right in front of the man, white sword already shooting forward like a snake lashing out towards its prey. As if rehearsed Itori stabbed the man right through the hole in his armour, her otherworldly weapon going straight through his middle and emerging from his back. Those with sharp eyes would see that the blade sticking out from the man didn't look solid: it had an ephemeral quality, lightly shimmering as if not entirely existing within the realm of mortals.

The armoured slaver gasped in surprise, his expression one of disbelief. However that expression soon lost its vigour, the eyes growing dull and his mouth hanging open lifelessly as all tension left his body. Slowly but inexorably his body toppled over, hitting the wet ground with a gravelly thud while Itori withdrew her weapon and put it back inside its scabbard. Crouching to investigate the slaver's condition she nodded to herself before standing up, turning around towards Victoria, and giving her a bow. "That was an excellent shot, Miss Sheridan. With this man subdued we have successfully captured all of the slavers." She turned her head to look towards where Nenet had been watching the fight. The phoenix was sitting on the roof of the slave hut, raising a hand and waving towards the two mages. "And Nenet has successfully rescued the prisoners, so I believe we have achieved all of our objectives... aside from delivering these criminals to the local government that is."

WC: 840
PWC: 18,988/11,000
TWC: 38,478/25,000

Victoria had hoped that Itori would take advantage of the hole blown in the slaver's armor before he got in the effective range of that three-headed flail and Fox Lady did not disappoint. She used a special spell of hers to disappear from sight, then reappear right in front of the armored slaver and stab through the hole with a white sword before he could react to Fox Lady's presence. The sword punched clean through the middle and emerged from his back, but it was no run-of-the-mill sword. There was something about it that made the brunette uncertain as to if it was real, but the weapon was all too real to Itori's target, who gradually yielded to the blade's effects and slumped onto the snow-covered ground.

Itori checked the slaver's vitals and nodded. He was unconscious but still alive. Victoria listened to the status report from Fox Lady and was pleased to hear that Nenet had managed to rescue all the captives without incident thanks to Victoria and Fox Lady making such an effective distraction. While she would have rather put all the slavers in the dirt so that their buddies could not break them out of prison for another crime spree or bribe the right people to set them free, the brunette would have to set her personal feelings aside and settle for taking them in alive. At any rate the job was basically complete and all the Sabertooth trio had to do was wrap things up by rounding up the slavers and finding a way to transport them.

Victoria dispelled her Rocket Launcher and gave a thumbs-up to Itori, the fox lady who had a plan for every situation. Victoria's joy from the victory over the slavers was short-lived because she had just thought of something. She owed Fox Lady an apology for earlier. The brunette walked over to Fox Lady and stopped about half a meter away.

"Sorry for being an asshole earlier. You know, about having to take the slavers in alive. I'm sorry about that. You're just upholding guild policy and you didn't deserve what I said to you." Victoria apologized to the Guild Ace for what she had said earlier. Fox Lady had more than pulled her weight by coming up with the plan that allowed three females to knock out an entire camp of slavers and rescue their captives without a single one of the captives being harmed. She had also supplied the spells needed to make their approach silent and their attacks go all but unnoticed until it was too late for the slavers to do anything about it. In contrast to Itori's versatility all Victoria had to offer was firepower and attitude.

Victoria would never be "the complete package" like Itori was. The brunette would never be able to duplicate the intricate planning, the amazing support magic, and the patience of a saint that Itori brought to the table. Then again, the brunette had only lived for eighteen years as opposed to the centuries that Itori had lived. Maybe living for centuries would teach Victoria patience... or maybe not.

At any rate, the unlikely duo of Itori and Victoria made a surprisingly good team. Itori pointed Victoria in a direction and gave advice and Victoria provided the firepower to make the plan happen. Itori and Victoria were a good combination and adding Nenet to the mix turned the dynamic duo into a triple threat with even more abilities to throw at their opponents. However, whether this team would continue to work together was entirely up to Itori.

Itori had every right to tell Victoria to jump off a cliff after how the latter had spoken to her earlier. Itori could boot Victoria from Sabertooth with the blessing of the Guild Master. She was well within her rights to do either thing and the choice was up to her. Victoria would not beg for forgiveness.

Victoria let silence fill the cold air for a bit before speaking again.

"So, how are we gonna get both the captives and these slaver clowns down the mountain? Do you think the slavers have any spare carts lying around?" Victoria asked Itori. While she could not kill them, Itori had made no prohibition against carrying the slavers to the authorities in their own carts. Victoria would get just enough schadenfreude out of that form of poetic justice to make up for not getting to kill the slavers. The brunette could live with that.

[Post Word Count: 748]
[Victoria's Word Count: 20,222/11,000]
[Total Word Count: 39,226/22,000]

Once she was certain that all the urgent matters had been taken care of Itori kneeled back down next to the armoured slaver. While Victoria's rocket launcher had done a good job making a hole in the man's expensive armour she didn't think it was enough: even with that hole in the front the enchanted armour could still cause trouble. Of course as long as the man was unconscious that wasn't a problem, but she'd rather not learn afterwards that the moment she and Victoria left the man broke free and helped his buddies escape as well.

As such she began to carefully remove the armour, taking the three-headed flail away as well. She wasn't entirely sure what to do with the enchanted equipment yet: maybe she'd give it to the authorities along with the captured slavers and let them take care of it. Actually that wasn't a bad idea... she could recommend selling it and using the money to help the liberated slaves. While some of them would have no problem returning to their friends and family and resuming their lives not all of them would be so fortunate, in which case it would be good if the government could support them financially and point them in the right direction. Of course she could also take care of that herself... but she didn't have the assets to do that on a larger scale.

She looked up as Victoria suddenly began to apologize for her behaviour. It sounded like the brunette was bothered by her own desire to kill the slavers. Or just how that desire made her behave. The tenko figured it was the latter, since she doubted that the gungirl would just change her mind about the fate of the slavers that quickly. Although maybe showing that it was possible to take care of such criminals in a non-lethal fashion would at least remind the brunette that it was possible to do the right thing without compromising effectiveness.

Nevertheless, she didn't need Victoria thinking like she hadn't done a good job here. Whatever attitude she might have had, the truth was that she'd been a very effective companion who'd carried out her task reliably. The only real advice that Itori would have was for the gunslinger mage to diversify her abilities a little so her solution to every problem wasn't 'shoot it'. But she'd already said that so repeating it wouldn't serve any purpose.

"There is no need to apologize. I am well aware that slavers elicit strongly negative feelings in many people. And the truth is that they deserve such a response: worse than death, to steal away the liberty of others. I myself am not fond of them either." She turned her gaze back to the man who she was disarming. "I would merely ask that you remember this encounter in the future. We managed to complete our objective without having to kill a single man. As much as our emotions may tell us to resort to more extreme measures, we must remain in control of ourselves and seek the solution which least compromises our morals." She had a small smile on her face, although Victoria probably wouldn't be able to see it from her position. "And of course deception and trickery are always fair game." Itori's moral system wasn't very complicated, all things considered, and blissfully silent on matters such as lies and deceit.

Once the man was divested of anything which could make him a threat Itori stood up. Fortunately the man had been clothed underneath his armour, so they didn't have to deal with a naked man resting in the snow. Then again they probably should still take steps to transport these slavers sooner rather than later: even with clothes on the weather of these foothills could be deadly.

"They must have wagons or similar vehicles to transport their prisoners." Itori agreed with the brunette when the topic turned to how they were supposed to get both their prisoners and their rescuees back to civilization. "Even if they were willing to allow their prisoners to walk, moving large quantities would be impractical." She looked around, but at first glance couldn't immediately see where they'd be hiding such carts. "Could you be so kind as to look for a method of transport? I shall take care of restraining our captives." With that said she began to tie the formerly armoured merchant up. She just hoped Victoria wouldn't ask where she got the rope from, because that would be a rather difficult question to answer.

While the two of them conversed Nenet decided to approach, jumping off of the rooftop of the slave hut and flying towards the fox and the gunner. "Looks like everything went well on your end." She called out before landing, her arrival coming with a wave of warm air that quickly caused the snow around them to melt. Now that they didn't have to be sneaky any longer the phoenix's heat was less restrained than before, water quickly pooling around her taloned feet before turning into steam. Looking around she whistled at the heaps of disabled slavers. "Also looks like I missed quite a party. Did you two have fun?"

"I would not describe it was 'fun', but admittedly successfully executing the plan and simultaneously incapacitating an entire gathering of remorseless criminals is both cathartic and satisfying." Itori replied without looking up from her task. Having tied up the first man she moved on to the other, Nenet placing her hands behind her own head as she followed with a grin. "Always with the collected attitude. Can't you just say that you enjoyed beating up some bad guys? I know I did." She nodded towards the slave hut. "Mind you there wasn't much to it: they only had two guards up there after you guys started raising hell and both of them went down without so much as a shout. Makes me wish they'd used someone tougher for guard duty."

"Most of these slavers were relatively mundane humans, relying on above-average physical ability and either lightly enchanted or purely physical weapons." Itori pointed out. "They relied on numbers and strategy rather than raw power. That man over there might have been able to live up to your expectations, but beyond that I expect that the element of surprise would have ensured that none of them would have remained standing for very long after you engaged them in combat."

"I think you're overselling me a little bit." Nenet countered. "And I never thought I'd say that. You two might have treated them like small fries but these slavers weren't just wimps you know. And as much as I like a good fight I can't just knock out anyone I want with a single punch... although I'd certainly love to try." She chuckled. "Well, that's what training is for. So, any plan of how to proceed from here?"

"Miss Sheridan shall be doing her best to acquire a mode of transport. Once we have restrained all the captives as needed I shall attend to the prisoners you rescued and ascertain whether they are in need of medical attention. Once medical aid is rendered as needed and available we shall begin our journey towards the nearest settlement of sufficient size." She glanced up at Nenet. "Speaking of which, you should return to them. They could use your warmth."

"Good point. Would be a bit of a pisser if we went all the way out here to rescue them and they froze to death." Nenet stated this with a grin, but she did as Itori asked and turned around to fly back towards the slave hut. In the absence of the phoenix the slaves had huddled together for warmth, but once the winged woman stepped back into the poorly maintained construction they visibly relaxed as warm air surrounded them once more. "Okay, so we'll be working on getting those bastards who grabbed you back to the authorities so they can be thrown into the slammer." Nenet stated without preamble as she pointed over her shoulder towards where Itori was working. "As for you guys, I imagine that you'd rather not stick around for that. Or stay here for that matter. My friend the fox lady over there is going to check all of you to make sure you're in good health, and then... Well, how many of you are up for a walk? Because anyone who wants to leave immediately can just go with me." Her grin widened a little. "Don't need to worry about the cold if you stick close. Of course it's a long way back so you might want to wait for my other friend to find some wagons." She scratched the side of her head as she considered that. Itori and Victoria were probably right in thinking there'd be something to transport slaves, but would there be enough for both the slaves and the slavers?

Itori in the meantime was gathering all the slavers in one spot, so it would be easier to keep an eye on them. Of course in the process she also got rid of all weapons and dangerous equipment, including armour. If they sold all of this it would provide a large sum of money for those unfortunate enough to have been captured by these criminals. But the same thought occurred to her as what her phoenix friend was thinking about, and she had to admit that she didn't have an immediate solution... Well, she did, but she'd hoped for something which wouldn't require her to show off.

It wasn't like she minded showing off her powers. Not exactly, at least. It was more that she was used to playing the supportive role, filling in the gaps while others shone like stars. To actually display some of her power in a flashy manner was... a bit embarrassing in a way. She'd grown used to being in the background over the years. Fighting together with Victoria wasn't as much of an issue because it was only the two of them, and she still made sure that she didn't pull off anything too spectacular. Even the barrage of flames could easily have been replicated with mundane artillery, if maybe not with as much precision.

This time, however, she would actually have to pull off some tricks which most likely few others could mimic. Her abilities could be quite mysterious and strange, possibly even eldritch depending on how you looked at it. Not that it was harmful, but having a nine-tailed fox warp reality could unnerve even experienced mages. Usually their warping of reality wasn't quite so... well, when Itori acted to change the fabric of reality it could leave you wondering about how stable reality really was, when you got right down to it. Was the world around you solid as a rock, immutable and everlasting? Or was it a thin layer of fabric, ready to be ripped apart by forces unknown? Best to not give people reason to think about it too much. Or too often. Down that path lay madness.

WC: 1,854
PWC: 20,842/11,000
TWC: 41,080/22,000

Victoria watched Itori remove the lead slaver's armor and take away his three-headed flail so on the off chance he woke up early he was about as much threat to them as a toddler. Well, he was still a giant toddler who could break the slender brunette over his knee if he ever got a hold of her, but without his fancy armor and weapon he would not be too difficult to take down. Besides, Victoria and Itori had defeated him once before and they could do it again. And if all else failed Itori could always authorize Victoria to just kill any slavers who got unruly, an order the latter would have no reservations against carrying out.

Victoria was glad that Fox Lady had accepted her apology. Fox Lady had been nothing but helpful to her despite the latter's obnoxious behavior and the brunette was glad to see that Itori was the forgiving type... at least this time. If Victoria continued to act like she had towards Itori the Guild Ace would not be so forgiving and the least the sassy brunette could expect was to be kicked from Sabertooth. Thankful that her actions had not created a rift between them, Victoria heard Itori ask her to procure transportation for both the freed captives and the unconscious slavers.

"Sure thing, Itori. I'll go look around the camp and see what I can find!" Victoria replied to Itori's request without any reservations. Perhaps it was the relief of not having alienated a powerful ally. Perhaps it was the chance to indulge in the swimming pool-sized serving of schadenfreude she would get from seeing slavers put in their own carts and hauled away to prison. Maybe it was a little bit of both that persuaded Victoria to accept the menial task without complaint. At any rate she merrily traipsed through the snow on the way to the rickety building the prisoners were once housed in to see if any carts were left behind the building.

-Behind the prisoner's hut-

Victoria arrived behind the prisoner's hut and looked around for either some carts or clues to their whereabouts. The brunette did not have to look far because there was one fitted with an iron cage in the back sitting about five meters away from her and neatly lined up waiting for horses to haul it away. She laughed a little and walked towards it until she reached the front, then pulled on it in an effort to get it to move.

The cart just would not budge.

"C'mon already." Victoria muttered at the stubborn cart. She pulled on the front again and it budged a little before rolling back into place and nearly throwing the brunette onto her ass. The fuming mage walked back to the wheels and looked down to see what had prevented them from moving. The answer was simple... two wooden wedges designed to prevent the cart from rolling into the building or rolling elsewhere!

The embarrassed brunette removed the wooden wedges from underneath the wheels one at a time, got in front of the cart, and tried to move it again. This time Victoria had much more success; while she had to struggle with the weight of the iron cage on the back, once she got it moving the cart did not offer too much resistance. She would have to find the horses, oxen, or whatever pulled this thing, but for now she would take it back to Itori and let her and Nenet begin loading slavers into them so that the brunette could bask in the irony.

As she gently and carefully wheeled it away she noticed six more carts, three with iron bars and three without iron bars on them, the latter of which must have been reserved for the use of the slavers. Those would do nicely for the freed captives to ride in. She still needed to find animals with which to pull the carts because she did not think that Itori would go for making the slavers pull their own cart to prison. That would fall under cruel and inhumane punishment and possibly get the Sabertooth mages into trouble.

-In the center of the camp-

Pulling the cart behind her slowly but surely, Victoria carefully avoided running over any unconscious slavers and brought the cart with the iron bars to a place in the center of the camp. She then brought it to Itori's attention.

"Hey Fox Lady, I've got one of the carts for the slavers right here! I've found three other carts that don't have bars that we can use to transport the captives outta here! We'll need to find horses, oxen, or however these carts were pulled up here because we sure can't pull them ourselves for very long!" Victoria said to Itori. The brunette took a minute to regain her strength before tromping through the snow to the back of the former prisoner cabin to haul another cart to the center of the camp, this time one without bars.

-Back behind the cabin-

Now knowing to check for wedges that prevented the wheels of the carts from rolling, Victoria picked one of the carts without an iron cage in the back and removed the wedges, then pulled on it and maneuvered it out of its "parking space" before wheeling it around with ease. Without the weight of the iron cage the cart was laughably easy to move on its own even for a slender person like Victoria. She began looking around for signs of the horses or whatever but did not see a stable in the immediate area. Perhaps she should take the matter up with Fox Lady and Nenet.

-In the center of camp, five minutes later-

Carefully maneuvering the cart just like she had done last time to avoid running over unconscious slavers, Victoria parked it a short distance to the right of the cart set aside for the slavers.

"Hey Itori, I found a cart without bars for the former captives to use! I still haven't found a stable for horses or anything like that! Where do you think the slavers would place a stable out here?" Victoria informed the Sabertooth Ace of her find before asking her opinion on where the slavers could feasibly put a stable for their animals in a place like this. While she waited for a response she took a brief break and looked at all the unconscious slavers scattered around her, Itori, and Nenet. Victoria smiled widely at the fact that three women had taken on an entire camp full of slavers and won thanks to Fox Lady's planning and versatile magic.

Itori, Nenet, and Victoria were an odd trio who happened to make a very good team once Itori got them focused on a task.

Victoria was glad that her loud mouth and obnoxious attitude had not broken the team up.

[Post Word Count: 1,152]
[Victoria's Word Count: 21,374/11,000]
[Total Word Count: 42,232/22,000]

As Nenet had told the captives, she brought them over to where Itori had gathered the defeated slavers in a small bunch so they could easily keep an eye on the lot of them. Granted the former captives didn't want to get too close to the thugs who'd taken them away from hearth and home, so the nine-tailed vixen had to make some distance between herself and the slavers so she could take a look at all the poorly dressed folk. Well, that wasn't entirely accurate: some of the rescuees still wore decent clothes, although anything of any real value had been stripped off of them. "Hmmm... Nenet, could you be so kind as to-?"

"Got it boss." Nenet gave Itori a playful salute before wandering off. Clearly the slavers had claimed any valuables for themselves, so before the three of them could get to escorting the captives and the freed folk back to civilization they'd have to find those valuables. Or what remained of them. No doubt some of them had been sold off already, since individual slavers could go down to civilization and sell whatever they'd claimed.

While the phoenix took care of searching for the lost possessions of the unfortunate souls Itori took upon herself the task of inspecting them for any injuries or illnesses. Slavers were an odd bunch when it came to treating their wares: some of them were very careful, wanting the to-be slaves to be in good condition, but others treated their victims with more aggression than they'd treat normal objects with. It was an odd type of cruelty since the first type of slaver tended to do better business. Then again cruelty wasn't based on logic or reason: a slaver who beat his slaves didn't do so because it was useful, but because they revelled in the fact that they could beat their slaves without any consequences.

While there were cultures in which slavery was commonly accepted and well-regulated slave-owners in Fiore were the kind of people who simply could not accept the idea of not being able to treat others as beneath them. Slavery was illegal in Fiore, so anyone who didn't have a pathological need to feel superior knew better than to get involved in the slave trade that still occurred in the black markets.

The good news was that Itori couldn't find any sign of magic having been used to force these victims to do as they were told. As wondrous as magic was there was a dark side to it, and one of the darkest sides was that it could be used to control another person's very being. However even as she created some flames to help keep the people warm while she passed them one by one there were no signs of the sort. She'd been worried after she saw one of the slavers use a kind of twisted dark magic, but apparently he didn't know how to use that magic inside other people's heads.

The greatest concern was frostbite: the slave pens hadn't been well insulated and the climate in these parts was cold throughout the entire year. As such the slaves whose clothes were in a worse state or who were of frailer health were already suffering from hypothermia. Whether the slavers would have done something about that or whether they didn't care if some of their cargo died Itori chose not to think about, since it was no longer relevant: those who were in danger would receive her healing, returning them to full health and giving them the strength needed to get out of this place. Nenet might have a point that some of them would have to walk.

When Victoria returned with the first cart Itori nodded in approval. "Understood. Nenet is currently attempting to retrieve the possessions of these people. Once I have finished making sure that all of them are in good health I shall aid you in finding a way to pull these wagons back to civilization. If we are fortunate none of the captured citizens will have to walk." She placed her hand against the forehead of an elderly man as she spoke, checking him for a fever before moving on. The guy was as healthy as a bull and didn't need her help at all. The child next to him, however... That one needed his jaw healed. He probably hadn't reacted very kindly to the slavers chaining him up.

Nenet was going through the tents of the slavers, carelessly ripping them apart and burning them away so she could get at the insides. Most of them had little more than a bedroll and some provisions, but the bigger ones also contained bags and crates and chests filled with stuff. Clothes, jewels, tools, toys... It looked like the slavers divided the possessions of their victims like spoils of war, with each slaver looking after their own loot. Which meant she'd have to finish destroying all the tents before she could retrieve all the possessions.

Other people might find that tedious work. Nenet just grinned as flames flared out over the camp with the phoenix enthusiastically burning all the tents to a crisp. Her control over her flames was precise enough that she could avoid damaging what was inside the tents, but the tents themselves were a lost cause once Nenet got her hands (and flames) on them.

Itori watched as Nenet began to burn down the tents, shaking her head before returning to the last couple of former captives who needed an inspection. Once she was confident that none of the rescuees were in need of medical attention she got to work on the next task: loading the slavers into the wagons with the metal cages. Using her tails to lift them up she dropped them into the cage without much ceremony. She'd already taken away their equipment and tied them up, so even if they woke up it wouldn't matter much. With nine tails she could quickly fill up the cage, after which she had to wait for Victoria to deliver the other three caged wagons. In the meantime, however, she had another task to take care of: the slavers sleeping inside the barracks. They had been left alone up until this point, but now the tenko would tie them up as well.

Telling the folk to leave the slavers alone Itori headed for the barracks. Stepping inside she sang softly to make sure the slavers would stay asleep as she one by one tied them up and brought them inside. The barracks contained quite a few slavers, enough that Itori was quite glad they'd taken an approach which kept these folk out of the fight. The three of them would most likely have been victorious nonetheless, but it was still good to minimize the amount of energy expended.

Once the last thug had been removed from the barracks Itori looked inside, frowning before sighing. Turning away she brought the sleeping slavers to the caged wagons to add them to the already defeated bunch. Looking over at Victoria she pointed in the direction of the barracks. "It appears that the stables are inside the barracks as well, most likely to protect the beasts from the weather. I had to wake them up as they had also been affected by the song I used to pacify the slavers inside."

If Victoria went to the barracks she'd indeed find horses, enough for all of the wagons. They seemed restless, but otherwise they'd behave as needed.

With Nenet having retrieved the possessions, Itori having ensured that the slavers were all disarmed and the captives were all in good health, and Victoria locating the means for transportation, the only thing left for them to do was bring the slavers and the freed folk back to civilization.

WC: 1,304
PWC: 22,146/11,000
TWC: 43,536/22,000

Victoria looked towards the barracks as Itori had told her to and blinked. She never would have suspected that the slavers would put their horses inside the barracks. The brunette figured them to be a bunch of cheapskates who treated their animals about the same as they treated their human victims, which was poorly. She had expected them to spend the bare minimum of time, effort, and money to house the horses, but in this case she was wrong. Victoria then began to think about the reason a little more and it started to make sense.

The horses were as much a part of the slaver's livelihood as the human victims they captured to take to their underground market. If they mistreated their horses by not feeding them properly, not giving them proper shelter, or using excessive physical discipline, the horses would either die from the mistreatment or just refuse to work for the men at a critical time such as while the slavers were being chased by the authorities. However, the brunette knew better than to think that there were any animal lovers among the slavers, Any good treatment afforded to the horses was for purely economic ends. Dead or dying horses did not pull carts very well, after all.

The brunette put a little more thought into it and realized that securing the horses in the barracks also had a security function. By placing the horses in the barracks, the slavers made it virtually impossible for any of the captives to escape without having to jump through a lot of hoops. They were hoops that would be virtually impossible for anyone except a ninja, a special forces operative, or someone like Itori to jump through.

First the captives would have to get out of their rickety hut without making too much noise. Then they would have to sneak across a camp in the cold and find the slaver barracks without being detected by any of the numerous sentries patrolling the camp. Once they found the barracks they would have to sneak through them and secure a horse without the horse making any noise. Then once they had found and secured a horse they would have to sneak it out of the barracks and climb onto its back, then get the horse in motion without falling off to make a run for freedom past the numerous sentries and hope that they could get away before they were recaptured... or just killed.

All of that was assuming that any of the captives even knew how to ride a horse to begin with.

While it was not out of the question, Victoria doubted that many of the captives knew how to properly ride a horse. She also doubted that many of them could find a safe way way off of the Phoenix Mountains. It would be very difficult to do both while under the immense pressure of being chased by slavers and facing recapture or death if one failed to escape.

"OK, Itori. I'm going to the barracks and getting the horses for us. I'll be back as soon as I can." Victoria said to Itori before setting out for the barracks to round up the horses needed for transporting the newly freed captives, themselves, and the slavers back to civilization. She never would have thought that the slavers would care enough about the horses to house them properly, but the brunette learned something new every day. She carefully made her way towards the barracks and entered the building without having to worry about stealth because the slavers within had been removed and put inside a caged cart for transport.

-Inside the barracks-

Victoria's nose wrinkled from the smell of over two dozen slavers with poor hygiene lingering in the wooden building... or was that the smell of the horses? She could not tell. Whatever its origin, she braved the awful odor and made her way through the barracks to the stables that were contained within and found the horses exactly as Itori had promised. There were just enough horses for all the wagons, which was good because now the brunette did not have to make up for the lack of horses by pulling one of the carts herself.

The horses were skittish because they were not familiar with her, but they were not acting violently towards her. Victoria did not really know how to interact with horses because she was a city girl through and through, so it would fall to Fox Lady to help her get them hitched to the carts. In the meantime Victoria located the large double doors to the rear of the barracks and opened them, then turned to four of the horses.

"OK guys, you're coming with me." Victoria said to them, gently taking the reins and calmly guiding them out of the barracks. They were skittish but did not react violently; they allowed themselves to be guided out of the barracks and towards the carts. With two reins in each hand the brunette guided them out of the barracks and towards the carts she had procured. It would take multiple trips to get them all and she hoped that the horses would not wander off or run off before she could get them all.

-Outside the barracks-

With the reins to her horses firmly in hand, Victoria carefully guided them to the gathering point to hitch them to the cart. Then she heard the sound of breathing behind her. Had a slaver escaped detection and targeted her for payback? The brunette turned around to find that all of the horses had followed her!

The brunette blinked. How did they know to follow her? She had no idea, but she was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth... or any type of horse, for that matter.

She looked at the first cart and realized that she had not secured all the carts yet, so that would mean that Itori and the captives would have to make sure that the horses did not wander off while the brunette went and retrieved the other carts. Hopefully Itori would be amenable to looking after the horses until the brunette got back.

-Thirty-five minutes later-

Having laboriously brought each and every cart she could lay her hands on and wheel out to the front of the camp, Victoria set down the last cart with a sigh. To her immense relief none of the horses had wandered off or made a run for it while she was gone. Now that all the carts had been procured, the brunette's task was to hitch the horses to the carts. But first she took a moment to begin to appreciate the schadenfreude of slavers being transported in their own barred carts. It was a sight that would never get old for the brunette.

After a minute of admiring the sight she realized that she had better quit wasting time and get the horses hitched. She would have the entire trip back to civilization to fully appreciate the schadenfreude of slavers being transported in their own carts. While on the trip the slavers would get a chance to see the other end of the slave trade, something that the Sabertooth mage got a lot of enjoyment out of. It was the wrong attitude for a member of a Legal Guild to have, but as someone who had nearly been taken as a slave when she was a child, Victoria could not help but to feel that way and enjoy the misery of slavers.

"Hey Itori! As soon as I hitch the horses to the carts we'll get going. It'll take a little while!" Victoria said to Itori just before the former began the laborious task of hitching the horses to the carts. She was not sure if specific horses were hitched to specific carts or not. This was her very first time hitching horses. Hopefully it would be the last time.

[Post Word Count: 1,330]
[Victoria's Word Count: 22,704/11,000]
[Total Word Count: 44,866/22,000]