Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

A dozen ships had left the Aranuvian bay a week ago. On them were the most brilliant soldiers that had ever graced their homeland from warriors who've slain keepers on the hell's sea to those who've survived the illusion by the Djinn queen and helped their kingdom gain on their enemies.

Even amongst the exceptional crowd, however, there were many misfits–all gathered in a ship of their own, Choux was among them. Daema, her drake was beside her as well, cooing at the many under-chin scratches from the curious passengers.

"A dragon cub, eh? Keep them away from red bread over there," joked a redhead sorceress clad in scanty red bikini armor. Following her gaze, Choux saw the man she was talking about–a bearded dwarf with a silver hammer. Tipped with a blue flame on the sharper back side of his weapon, the weapon was more intimidating than the dwarf himself.

"Oy, don't go 'round spreading rumors!" Yelled the dwarf, squeezing tight on the hammer's handle. Staring angrily at the redhead with long curly hair, a strange tension built between the two, Choux looked at her drake and motioned it to get away from trouble.

As the drake took a step away from the woman, the dwarf's eyes followed him closely. Glancing at a particularly sensitive region, he made both girls uncomfortable from his leering at the drake's genitals.

"Besides, it's a boy…" He said and that made the group he was with burst up with laughter.

"Ignore, I shouldn't have dragged that weirdo into the conversation," the sorceress whispered to Choux before looking down at the witch hunter sitting on the floor. Offering her a hand, she waited for her to take it, and although at first, Choux didn't want to, when the sorceress refused to move, she decided to just take it and this over with. Helping the witch hunter, the sorceress quickly leaned into Choux's ears and whispered. "We might have some time to…ease up if you'd like. Just you and me–under the deck, licking peaches, hmm?"

Looking away without a word or any visible expression, Choux wore a raging grimace to let the woman know how she felt about the idea without saying it. Pulling herself back with a disgruntled look, the sorceress clicked her tongue and slapped the witch hunter with the back of her hand–but not too hard yet not too easy either.

Not wanting to attract too much attention, Choux didn't utter a word of complaint and simply waited for the woman to walk away from her. For a while, the sorceress stared at the witch, her expression shifting between a lustful glance and utter disgust. The rest of the crew was watching the interaction from a distance, every single one of them curious whether the infamous redhead would get her way again with a that appeared far too young for anything sexual.

"Burn in hell!" Their anticipation came to a disappointing end as the sorceress decided to leave the witch hunter after all.

Following her with her eyes as the woman started walking away, Choux whispered as quietly as possible.

'I hope you die, you pedophile…'

Thankfully for her, the sorceress didn't hear a thing and instead carried her nearly naked body to another more mature-looking girl. Raising a hand and waving at the girl she was walking over to, the sorceress tried to do a high five but suddenly the lights of the world around the ships were stripped away in an instant.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Darkness reigned under the once dark blue skies of Stellaris, nobody could see a thing–except the demis and those who had weapons enchanted with light. And even those weapons were slowly being snubbed of their power, how it seemed that whatever was taking from their light, wasn't powerful enough to snuff them outright.

"GATHER!" Screamed the caption of the misfit ship and the same command echoed from the other ships. Picking themselves up from the ground, the warriors tried to get closer to light sources like lamps, enchanted weapons and the like, while the mages and the rest conjured their own light as they tried to spot the enemy, all the while walking closer into a group.

"What in the hells is this?!"

"I thought we had time before reaching that damned island?!"

"That fucking queen! She must've caught on to what we were to do!"

Many theories began to flow in the darkness, but none knew exactly what was happening. Standing in her own clear blue light shimmering through her skin, Choux remained mostly unbothered by the change and instead of gathering like cattle for some false sense of security, she readied her rifle and got up on her drake.

"Hey, you girl!" Hearing the caption screaming at her, her head instinctively turned to the voice in the darkness. Using her night vision as a half-fox, she could see the horned man pointing in her direction. "Get up and find out what the hell's happening!"

Nodding back at him, she tugged on Daema's rein and took right to the wind; and the moment she did, the sharp sound of an arrow piercing through the whistled through the unusually calm ocean. That calmness, however, was broken the moment the arrow shot through the eye of an elven ranger trying to scout the situation from the sail.

"ACKK!" He screamed as his body fell head-first to the deck. Falling on the arrow which then pierced through his brain killed the man right then and there.

A still took over the fleets, many of them could see the man fall as clear as day despite the darkness, and it was worse for those who couldn't see at all and had only heard the dying scream of one of their companions.

"SHIT!"

"WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP AND FOCUS YOU DUNCES!"

Hysteria from the crew and the captains' desperate attempts to contain said crew, their voices, their screams and the horrid expressions riding on their faces–these may have been the best of Aranuvia but even the best of the best were susceptible to shock from grim surprises.

'Where are they?'

Being one of the very few who'd still managed to keep their calm, Choux looked around through a periscope, but couldn't find anyone or anything. A thick dark mist had surrounded their ships–it was by no means natural and Choux knew it well.

'I know you're there…'

Bagging the equipment, instead of aimlessly looking around in the ocean dark, she grabbed her rifle, chambered an enchanted bullet and kept it ready to fire in the direction the next arrow started cutting through the mist. Keeping her ears and eyes perked, she took a deep breath with her finger itching to pull the trigger.

'Shoot another arrow I dare you…'

While waiting for that arrow, however, Choux missed something happening down on her ship. Her enemies had prepared for every possibility and that included being spotted, but camouflage wasn't the only thing they'd planned for.

Thus rising from his death the fallen ranger was just about to prove it.