Shine Like the Moon

"Nao!  What the hell!" Anastasia shouted out while on George, the vehicle flying through the air towards the Haunted Village.  "Why the hell do we always take jobs that take us to scary places!?  First the place with all the creepy dolls and now we get to fight Werewolves!?" she shouted out in frustration.  While it was good to finally be back to doing jobs with members of her team, she wasn't excited with the fact that they had to go to a spooky, scary town with half-human/half-animal hybrids. She grumbled a bit and mumbled about abominations.  And in response to that Taliya punched Anastasia on the back of the head in a comedic manner.  

Taliya put her hands upon her hips as her extremely large breasts bounced a bit.  Indeed, they were distracting and the fact that she didn't wear any actual clothing, if you can call her torn rags clothing, which doesn't cover up a whole lot of anything drew the eyes to where they weren't supposed to go.  Poor Nao.  Not only does he have to deal with a harem of girls within the ship; now he has to also deal with a love-hungry animal of a woman named Taliya.

"Speaking of Nao, do you know if he has a girlfriend?" Taliya asked as she pushed the tips of her index fingers together in a rather shy tone.  Anastasia shrugged her shoulders a bit as she sat at the helm of the ship while they were stuck on-course towards the Haunted Village.  A chill ran up Anastasia's spine as she just thinks of the creepy and frightening creatures that Lycans were.  

"At least you aren't a wolf, eh Tali?" Anastasia wondered.  Yup, that's her nickname for the overly chesty creature before her.  Taliya tilted her head and shook her extremely fluffy tail.  "What do you mean?"

"You know.  We're going to be exterminating these wolves and maybe if you were one of them, you'd probably feel bad about it," Anastasia said.

Ana was given a dismissive wave.  "Pfft.  Even if it was my people, my job is to protect you.  And thankfully, you get yourself into some really crappy situations and that involves fighting.  And you know how much I -LOVE- to fight!" she said with a big grin on her face as she slapped her hands together, creating a minor shockwave, jolting the ship a bit as if it flew through turbulence.  

"PLEASE DO NOT DO THAT AGAIN" spoke the on-board artificial intelligence of the ship.  Taliya placed her hands behind her head and smiled towards the ship's main console with her breasts jiggling a bit more.  "Haha!  Sorry about that," she stated as her breasts just jiggle for no apparent reason now.  This caught Anastasia's attention for a moment before her face twisted in awe.  

"Damnit, Taliya!  Put on some damn clothes!" Anastasia shouted out.

Taliya simply grinned and flipped the bird at her before rubbing her hands down her body seductively.  "Maybe you're just jealous because you're built like a 12 year old boy?" she said intentionally trying to get a rise out of Anastasia.  The urge to kill was rising before the Artificial Intelligence piped in stating:  

"20 KILOMETERS UNTIL DESTINATION HAS BEEN REACHED.  PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR COMBAT."

A groan came across Anastasia's lips as she slouched a bit in the helm's chair.  Peeling herself off of the seat, Anastasia groaned and walked passed Taliya without saying a word.  This caused Taliya's head to follow Anastasia as she walked off of the bridge.  "What's bothering her?  Geez!" Taliya said before going into hot pursuit of the Requip mage.  
 

Anastasia trudged through the hallway, fuming at Taliya's whimsical and care-free attitude.  While it's nice to be like the wind and not have fear, does one have to be such a pervert like that?  That even puts Ana's lack of inhibition, at times, to shame.  Anastasia grunted for a moment before seeing a rather pale Nao approach.  Anastasia raised a brow for a moment before changing her rather annoyed demeanor to a big and welcoming smile.  "Oh, hi there, Nao!" she greeted in her usual manner.  "Yeah, we're going to be arriving here in few minutes.  I was just about to get dressed," she stated before the door opened up behind her and her face went from cheery back to the annoyed look once more.

"Oh!  It's Nao!" shouted the busty and fluffy-tailed woman as she ran passed Anastasia and wrapped her arms around Nao, moving his head down into her cleavage, shaking the man from side to side.  "Why are you the only guy on this ship, NaoNao!?" she asked as she shook him around like a ragdoll while sticking her tongue out to Charlie in a taunting manner.  "I bet you wish you could do this with NaoNao, huh?" she said before stopping for a moment.  Cold and clammy skin?  After realizing this, she let the man go only to flee behind Anastasia, to which she delivered a clobbering fist to the top of Taliya's head, causing a large lump to form on the top of her skull.  "I'm pretty sure I deserved that," she said as tears fell from her eyes like small waterfalls.

"Don't be a pervert to Nao, you wench!" Ana shouted before pointing her hand towards her chambers.  "And put some damn clothes on!" she shouted before Taliya, with her shoulders slouched forward, walked to Ana's room in defeat.

Taking a deep breath inward, she turned and looked towards Nao for a moment inquisitively.  "How come you want to get off this ship soon?  You weren't like this before," she said speaking with her hands with one of her palms turned skyward.  And then Nao asked his next question with a bit of a sigh, lowering her hand back down to her side.  

"Well, I haven't been on a job in a while so I decided to take this one, even if it involves going to a placed known to be haunted," she shivered.  Ironically, she dealt with the dead; the freshly dead anyway.  Even one with Valkyrian blood could get creeped out by a haunted village.  What makes it worse is the Lycanthropes were just simply terrifying creatures to begin with.  "And besides, I need the money," she said as tears fell from her eyes in a comedic manner.

A loud ding sound came over the intercommunication system.  George, the AI spoke up.  

"ARRIVING TO THE DESTINATION, THE HAUNTED VILLAGE, IN 10 MINUTES.  PLEASE FINISH FINAL PREPARATIONS FOR DISEMBARKING AND INITIATION OF JOB."

Anastasia paused for a moment and heard the announcement before looking back towards Nao with a warm smile.  "Just hang in there a little longer, Nao, we'll touch the ground here in a bit alright," she said as she stepped towards him and placed a hand upon his shoulder.  "Oh! Sorry about Taliya.  She likes everything related to men.  So if she gets under your skin, let me know alright?" she said with a nod, turning to look at Charlie and smiled to him as well.  She would go and pet the creature, but still wasn't sure if it would snap at her and take her arm off or not.  Certainly, the two worked well together when the Rising Tide event happened; just because they made good teammates doesn't mean the creature would accept her as a friendly though.  Sasha wouldn't have, so Ana would never expect Charlie to.  

"I'll see you in about 10 minutes at the cargo-hold, alright?" she stated before walking passed Nao and Charlie, removing her hand from his shoulder before walking towards the door of her room and began to get dressed.  As soon as she entered, she was welcomed by a couple palms on her chest belonging to Taliya.  "What the HELL?!  Get your hands off my breasts!" Anastasia said.  Her voice was clearly heard in the hallway by Nao and Charlie before the sound of shuffling and stuff moving around in her room before hearing a final moan from Taliya.  What actually happened in there was simply up to Nao's imagination.

"Stop touching my breasts!  God damnit!" Anastasia shouted as she ran away from Taliya long enough to get dressed before delivering a crushing blow to the top of her head, causing Taliya to face plant directly onto the bed.  Taliya stood up and rubbed the back of her head, feeling it pulsating and swelling up.  She began to weep a bit.  

"You're so mean, Ana.  I just wanted to feel them.  You know, the more you massage them, the bigger they'll--" she said before receiving yet another stiff punch to the back of the head.

"Err!  That's an old-wives tale!  It's not true, you idiot!" she said before she finished preparations with her clothes.  Ana cleared her throat and reached for The Fire Moth and put it into Taliya's arms.  "Hold on to this until we get start fighting those damn werewolves," she stated with a bit of annoyance in her voice.  Pouty lips followed her as she walked out of her quarters with Taliya following shortly behind with the floating weapon pressed against her ample chest.  

"I need to pee," Taliya mentioned, causing Anastasia to stop a moment.  The vessel in her forehead began to pulsate with complete and utter irritation.  "We had 10 minutes before the start of the job and you were too busy playing with my boobs.  You could have spent that time taking a piss instead," she said quietly before turning towards Taliya and grabbing The Fire Moth out of her hands.  "Go pee and make it quick," she stated.  Taliya simply walked away towards the latrines and quickly vanished into one of the stalls.  

"Ugh, idiot," she said before shouting towards the bathrooms.  "Meet me in the Cargo Hold!" she shouted out only for an "Okay!" to be heard.  "And wash your hands too!  You aren't an animal anymore!"  she responded.  Since Taliya chose to take on a human form, Anastasia had to drill into her head human etiquette.  That wasn't an easy job for someone as carefree and sloppy as she was.

Making her way into the cargo-hold, she began to scratch at the strange mark on her hand.  It hasn't acted up in a while, not since the Rising Tides incident.  "Sorry about Taliya.  She's having a hard time adjusting to human society," she said as she turned her eyes towards Nao for a moment.  "She sure does love her some men though.  At least she isn't picky about their looks," she said with a bit of a chuckle, as if to try to start an awkward conversation with Nao.  

There was a strange silence for a brief moment.  "Hey, are you alright, Nao? Lately, you've been looking pretty pale while we are in the air.  Something the matter?" she stated as, if on queue, the aircraft finally landed safely on the ground.  A call was made over the intercommunication system.

"WE HAVE ARRIVED AT OUR DESTINATION.  YOU HAVE ARRIVED 2KM AWAY FROM YOUR JOB DESTINATION FOR SAFETY OF THE CREW AND OF THE SHIP"

Ana's head turned up to listen to the announcement before she took a few deep breaths to regain her composure.  "Well, as soon as Taliya is done with the bathroom, we should start on this job alright?  I'm counting on you Nao," she said with a big and bright smile.  Of all of the people in the team she could count on, Nao was most certainly the teammate of choice.  The two had been on the most jobs together and they had gone through a LOT of hairy situations.  It was thanks to his support that Ana is still alive now.

Taliya had to use the bathroom and it left Anastasia, Nao, and Charlie in the cargo hold waiting. Nao's response was one of the reasons she likes the guy so much.  He's reliable, dependable, he's also not bad on the eyes, and he's loyal from what she had seen.  A man like that is rather hard to come by, unfortunately, he wasn't quite her type.  Clearing her throat, Anastasia nodded her head with a bright smile.  "Yeah, thanks.  She can be obnoxious, but she's getting used to humans," she said to Nao.  Then he said that he would promise to keep her safe, which caused Ana's cheeks to be tinted a slight pink color.  It was strange that he promised to keep someone that is to keep her safe out of harm's way.  Was that indirectly saying that he would also protect her in kind?  

Anastasia cleared her throat once more and adjusted her position, shifting her weight between legs, running her hands through her long blonde hair.  Nao mentioned having plans.  Good!  The two needed a plan.  They did things 'off-the-cuff' so often that having an actual plan would be refreshing.  The best time to make a plan was while Taliya wasn't around because Taliya would just criticize every plan that would ever be created.  So now is the best time to listen and understand.  Nao explained his plan to stay ranged and away from these beasts, which was a rather solid and sound plan.  If they couldn't attack except up close, then attacking them from afar and above would prove to be at their advantage.  "Yeah, that sounds like a great plan, Nao!  We could also use the height to our advantage so we can see where they all are with a wider field-of-view, right?" she asked.  Well, he was the eye-guy so something like field-of-view would be home-turf for him.

And then Nao decided to play this one by ear, causing Anastasia's lip to tug a bit in disappointment.  "No, I think your plan would be fine.  I'll have Taliya stay on the ground and gather up the werewolves.  Don't worry, she can more than take care of herself on the ground.  These things are very similar to what she is anyway," she said flipping her hair around once more.  Now she feels a bit awkward being here, by herself, with Nao and Charlie.  She started to look towards the door for Taliya to show up.  And, as if on command, Taliya burst through the door and shouted.  "Hell yeah!  I like that plan!  I'll beat this creeps up on the ground and you two be wimps in the air!  Naw, it's cool!  Let's do this!" she shouted out as her breasts bounced along with her striking a victorious pose.  She was too gung-ho for her own good.

"Yeah!" she said as she was getting more and more pumped up.  "Open that shit!" she said as she slammed her hand onto a red button which caused the power to the door to instantly drop.  What she pressed wasn't the 'open' switch, but it was the emergency power shut-off.  The door instantly opened, causing Anastasia to float in the air for a moment.  During this moment, Anastasia pointed at Taliya with the look of the devil in her eyes.  It was, as if, in slow motion, Anastasia stated "You idiot" before slamming down to the ground, falling face-first onto the ground.

Taliya landed lightly on her feet before releasing The Fire Moth, having it float around Anastasia, even while she was down.  "God damnit, Taliya.  That wasn't the open switch!" she stated before standing up, rubbing her reddened face.  

Standing up, however, she looked up to the ship.  "George.  Reset that switch and bring the door back up," she demanded from the ship, only for it to comply and do as it was told.  Anastasia grumbled once more before noticing the setting that she had found herself in.  Everything was quiet within the outskirts of town.  There wasn't a single sound.  No sound from crickets, birds, people, anything.  The silence was super eerie.  The shallow sheet of fog that rested on the ground of the town didn't help with the freaky-factor either.  

"Don't remind me about when we got turned into toys, Nao," she said still rubbing her nose.  That town was already creepy to begin with and she was given an action figure similar to what she was like when she got turned into one as a consolation prize.  What an insulting prize that was.  She would have rather have received more money instead of that prize.  

There was a rumbling in the bushes near them and out of instinct, Anastasia turned her eyes towards it before hiding behind Taliya.  "What the hell?  Why are we in such a scary place?"  "Because that's where our job is at, stupid!" Taliya said before turning her shoulders to put Anastasia back up front.  There was another rumbling in another set of bushes before dark figures, just outside of the light's reach can be seen moving around.  Anastasia's skin crawled and she felt chills move up her spine.  She felt eyes everywhere, from every possible direction gazing at her.  

"I don't like this place, Nao," she said visibly shaking.  While she didn't have a specific fear of monsters, the events that happened in Toylaton left scars upon her ego that didn't appreciate terrifying things like this; making her quite the bummer during Hallow's Eve.  

George began to lift off, startling Anastasia and causing her to yell out loud.  Her shriek was loud enough to reverberate around everywhere.  Noticing she did something wrong, Anastasia covered her mouth with both of her hands.  The look in her eyes knew that she made a mistake.  Within the darkness, more dark figures began to move around just outside of Ana's ability to see clearly in the light.  The sounds of growls could be heard from no discernible location.  Her knees began to click together in fear before Anastasia closed her eyes, causing a veil of white light to cover her before she found herself in a 16 meter tall suit of armor.  Another bright ball of light appeared on her left shoulder before Anastasia continued to look around, even while in the massive suit of armor.  She could hear sounds just as sensitively as she could at her normal height.  Her hands wiggled the control stick out of absolute fear.

The Fire Moth continued to circle her, even in this size having grown proportionally to stay consistent with her armor's size.  It turned in all directions that Ana could perceive threats to come from.  Another growl could be heard coming from behind her having The Fire Moth point in that direction before Anastasia screamed again.  

"G'damn, keep your cool, Anastasia!" Taliya shouted out loud.  Taliya didn't seem fazed by any of these spooky things at all.  With a sigh, she turned to look towards Nao and shrugged her shoulders.  "Good luck with that one."

Taliya looked at Nao awkwardly as she was handed a potion.  Taliya looked at it for a moment and shook it.  "Well, alright.  I'll give it a few minutes, drinking it only when I have to," she simply stated before putting the potion given to her upon her side.  She didn't really have a good place to put the bottle.  She could put it between her breasts, but she's afraid battle and pressure might break the bottle.  She could put it in her hair or tail, but then she would have issues clawing through all that hair to get the bottle if she needed it.  The first world problems of a creature turned humanoid.  Taliya heard something approaching before giving Nao a thumbs up.  She smashed her hands together, creating a shockwave.  

After the shockwave, 3 werewolves appeared.  A look of fear were in their eyes.  "Time for you two to lift off!" Taliya stated before Anastasia leaped back a bit in her giant armor.  With a roar, the engines of her armor ignited, slowly causing Anastasia to lift off.  The suit of armor flew upwards just as the terrified lycanthropes arrived on the scene.  Anastasia didn't bother noticing the frightened looks on their faces.  No, that wasn't important to her.  What she wanted was to quickly get out of here and accomplish the job that they were sent here to do.  Did regret fill Anastasia for accepting this job?  Most certainly!

Flying backwards, her eyes scanned over Taliya down below.  "Oh!  You idiots think you can take my on!?  Taliya simply stated before a big grin crossed her lips.  She ducked under one of the Lycan's swipes with their claws only to deliver a crushing blow to one of their faces, following up with a kick to it's groin.  It was then that she turned her eyes to look into one of the other Lycan's eyes.  Taliya saw fear in it's eyes.  It didn't know what it was doing and from what Taliya noticed, it didn't want to be here.  It was, as if, pure instinct drove it to approach them and strike at them.  Blood-thirst and hunger were the most likely reason for their ravenous behavior.  
However, upon staring one directly in the eyes of one of the Lycans, Taliya received a slash across her back from one of the Lycans she wasn't paying any attention to.  A loud growl could be heard coming from Taliya before the one she was eye-balling roared out and took a swipe at Taliya.  What little sympathy she had for this creature instantly melted away.  The serum that Nao gave to Taliya wasn't yet ready.  Crap!  

While hovering around, terrified of the creatures coming near, Anastasia watched as Taliya did her best to handle the creatures' onslaught upon her.  She tightly closed her eyes and said a few words to herself; words of encouragement and words to talk herself out of being a wimp.  The kind of words that'll amp her up so she doesn't act like a mistake.  "If you keep acting like this, Anastasia, you will be proving those Blue Ponies right.  Buck up, stupid," she said to herself before clearing her throat and getting a determined look in her eyes.  "Screw that!  I'm not going to let those damn Ponies win," she said to herself.  Obviously, she has issues letting go.

Anastasia queued the mic to speak out of the armor.  "Taliya!  Gather them up!" Anastasia shouted out to Taliya.  The creature turned to look up towards the imposing looking armor and gave a big thumbs up with a big grin on her face.  "Took you long enough," she said before Taliya turned her head towards Nao, winking and blowing a kiss at him.  "Stay back, alright?"

Taliya started to gesture at the werewolves, trying to get their attention.  Considering these creatures don't have the same capacity to think, she wouldn't be able to use her feminine wiles upon them.  Instead, she dipped into her animalistic side and acted like injured prey.  Wolves can't resist an easy kill right?  Remembering Anastasia's attack and the range of the attack, Taliya ran outside of the city to avoid the buildings.  "Catch me if you can!" she shouted out before making her way outside of the city.

"Nao!  Do me a favor and follow up on this attack, alright?" she asked before loading 6 missiles into her missile pod, turning to follow and track Taliya's movements.  Anastasia hovered at least 40 feet above what was going on.  Extending her hand out, she sent out The Fire Moth towards the group of werewolves to corral them towards Taliya, shooting off a blast from it's nozzle, hitting one of the werewolves square in the chest, causing it to turn around and move towards Taliya.  

Taliya came to a screeching halt about 60m away from the town and continued to taunt the creatures.  It was, as if scripted, all three of the werewolves lunged it at Taliya only for Anastasia to shoot off one massive missile towards the group.  Taliya stayed until the last moment, quickly moving out of the way.  The three werewolves converged onto the missile, causing a rather large explosion.  There was a reason Taliya moved away from the town, after all.  With a quick follow-up, The Fire Moth whirled around and made 2 quick shots towards the other two werewolves.

Ana felt a strange tingling feeling as Nao got closer to her.  A strange feeling nagged at her, causing the tingling to intensify the closer Nao got.  Normally, Anastasia didn't get any kind of physical response from Nao's presence, however, something was different today. She did, after all, finish her trial up the Phoenix Mountains about a week ago.  Something about his presence bothered her.  

While hovering, Anastasia watched as Nao simply spat bubbles at his opponent.  Raising a brow, Anastasia shook her head in disbelief before shouting out. "Bubbles?!  Is that your new power?"  Ana wasn't able to put two and two together.  She couldn't figure out that the man was a dragon slayer with the ability to use water spells.  Clearing her throat, she forced her lip to tug upwards to one side.  Well, if Nao has new powers, Anastasia should show off her own new powers.  But now wasn't the right time to do so.  As she pondered this thought, the fledgling were-wolves growled and regained their senses, only for Anastasia to release yet another missile at the group.  The missile touched down between the grouping of werewolves, causing a thermobaric explosion around them.  

She should really consider a shockwave option for this weapon some-day.  The initial explosion of the blast completely incapacitated the fledgling werewolves.  Taliya fist-pumped a bit before being ambushed from behind!  A single slash from one of the wolves came across her back, forcing her to roll forward.  "Shit!  We have more company, Ana!" she shouted before taking up a firm stance.  The pain in her eyes was plainly evident.  Blood began to pour from the wounds in her body, causing her legs to shake a bit.  These creatures hit hard as hell and Taliya just wasn't tanky enough to take much damage from these things.  

Clearing her throat, Taliya got to work on the new creatures.  She pulled back her left hand and threw it as a feint, only to follow-up with an uppercut to the throat on one of the monsters.  After Taliya hit the werewolf, The Fire Moth followed up with a shot to the face.  Another werewolf tried to jump in on Taliya, causing her to duck down and kick the creature in the throat with a near vertical donkey kick into the air.  Her clothing would offer a near-free show, but nobody would be paying much attention due to the fact that there was plenty of fighting and that should be their focus and not Taliya's naughty bits.  

Like a good teammate, The Fire Moth followed up the kick, while the werewolf was in mid-air, and shot it in the back, causing it to fall back forward towards Taliya.  Taliya then finishes her combo on that same werewolf with a jumping uppercut directly into the chin.  The third werewolf, however, remained sneaking around, utilizing the darkness of night to cover it's tracks.  

"Crap!  I can't see him, Anastasia!  Where is he?" Taliya asked before Anastasia used her heads up display to scan for the target.  The scan took a moment before locking-on to the last werewolf that Taliya hadn't hurt yet.  "Taliya, check your 8 o'clock!" Anastasia said.  Feeling her body run cold, Taliya cleared her throat and looked towards Nao.  "I hope you can hit in an area.  If you can, help me out," she said as she clapped her gauntlets together, causing a rune to appear glowing brightly around the gauntlet.  

"Authorizing restraints released!" Taliya stated.  Anastasia knows exactly what's going to happen, causing her to flee upwards, outside of it's range.  "Nao, get out of it's range.  It has a range of 35 meters," Anastasia stated.  "Also, if you perform a move that goes within that range, it'll suck the move in towards the center.  Don't worry about hurting Taliya, she's a big girl," Anastasia stated as her missile pod continued to load the next missile into place.

With a quick punch to the ground, Taliya shouted out, in old fashion, the name of her ability.  "Crest of the Fallen Star!" she said before a singularity began to form upon her gauntlet, sucking everything in towards the event horizon of the miniature black hole that she just created.  Everything within a 35m radius began to get absorbed into the black hole from trees to cats to the werewolves that were their target.  However, unlike the trees and cats, the werewolves would stop just within arm's reach of Taliya.  After reaching the area, Taliya began to unload attacks onto the third one with The Fire Moth piggybacking with a single shot.  

"Nao!  Your turn!"

Taliya shouted out.  "Thanks, Naonao!" she said as the pull of gravity began to dissipate, Taliya throwing additional punches to each of the wolves while The Fire Moth continues to pepper the wolves with plasma blasts straight to the chest.  The Fire Moth was instructed to hold back and not kill these beasts as it would be the end of the job if any of these poor saps were to be killed.  It wasn't their fault that they were changed to this and it shouldn't be up to Anastasia and Nao to kill them.  Though, she had every thought and longing to kill them.  Then again, the client also specifically stated to not kill any of these people cursed by the moon.

While the wolves were gathered near Taliya, they took slashes at Taliya, causing her to block with her weapon a couple times before eventually taking a few strikes to the body.  These things struck hard and fast, causing Taliya to begin bleeding profusely.  "Get this over with already!" Taliya stated before quickly moving out of the way as Anastasia loaded up yet another missile into her pod and launched it away.  Hearing the sound of the missile igniting from the pod, Taliya put her hand up to her nose and wiggled her finger in a taunting manner before quickly running away.  As she ran away, however, she left a large trail of blood in her wake.  The missile hit ground and exploded, sending out a concussive wave to the remaining wolves, knocking them unconscious.  

After the smoke cleared, everything seemed placid; well, as placid and calm as a haunted village could be.  Grumbling, Taliya took the container of drink that Nao had given her earlier and downed the whole thing.  It was a strange spell, but it seemed very effective to say the least.  She felt most of her wounds closing and she took a seat upon the ground to catch her breath.  "I seriously should have grown wings or something.  Fighting on the ground isn't easy, damnit!" Taliya stated in a whiny voice.  Well, Taliya did have quite the crap job to corral the werewolves into a tight area so Anastasia's explosives would do an exponential amount of damage to all of them.  

Laying beside her was one of the unconscious wolves.  She nudged one of them with her feet before spitting on the ground beside them.  "What do you suppose is causing them to do this?" Taliya asked as her body was enveloped in a pure white light with her body shrinking down to normal size.  

"That's a good question.  Know anything about this, Nao?" she asked as she went to Taliya's side to look over her wounds.  They weren't life threatening (well, at least they aren't any more thanks to Nao's new capabilities).  This caused Ana to raise her brow a bit.  "Before you answer that, tell me, Nao. Where did you learn to use water magic?" Anastasia asked as the clouds above began to gather as rain started to fall on the group.  Taliya simply looked at Anastasia, appearing to be a wet dog.  What a time to remove her armor, huh?  

This caused Anastasia to help Taliya up onto her feet and went under a tree to get a bit of shelter from the rains.  A little grumble came from Anastasia's lips as she sat under the tree during their momentary reprieve from all of the fighting.  Something bugged at her in the back of her mind.  Why these people are turning into werewolves and why Nao can use water magic.  However, now while she was under the tree, was the best time to answer while everyone was taking a break.

Taliya felt another rush of water flow over her, healing her of her wounds.  Having a reliable healer in the party made it so much easier to survive difficult jobs such as this.  Unlike most jobs, the group had a moment's reprieve to sit and collect themselves before throwing themselves back into the frying pan once again.  Taliya turned her eyes towards Nao and had a big grin on her face.  "You're the best, Nao," she said with a little wink in his direction.  While the wounds on her body were healed, it didn't do much for her stamina.  

Anastasia wasn't too exhausted as she spent most of her time flying around and shooting missiles, putting her guardian in harm's way for the sake of accomplishing the mission.  Her eyes turned back to Nao as he explained how and why he gained his magic.  The time between the Rising Tides and now was a good stretch of time, long enough for someone to get relatively proficient at something like water magic.  However, Anastasia never pinned Nao as the type to use water magic.  

Light Magic:  Sure.
Earth Magic:  Probably.
Water Magic:  Not really.

But having an element that involves a massive resource on the planet was always good to use.  Anastasia smiled at him and nodded.  The cool from the rain and the sounds of the drops was enough to settle her, calming her down from the ever encroaching fear she had for terrifying monsters such as the werewolves.  As Nao came under the tree, however, he detailed his observations on the werewolves.

This caused Anastasia and Taliya to turn towards him.  "A single family?  Do you think this could have been a family curse or something?" she asked before thinking about it.  Well, if the ability to become a werewolf was genetic, then it is possible that the genes were passed down to the offspring.  After all, Nao noticed that the werewolves that the 4 just fought were all fledglings; children in comparison to the real terrors of the night.  

"But wouldn't that be a big family?" she asked as she noticed the 6 fledgling werewolves passed out in the rain.  

"Well, you know, when wolves have children, they have them in litters," Taliya said as she sat up, arched her back and let her fluffy tail swing back and forth.  Ana put her left hand through her shortened hair and sighed.  "I don't think it works like that if they were human first, Taliya," Ana responded.  "Oh, right," Taliya said before introducing the palm of her head to her forehead.  She followed up with a shrug of her shoulders.  Anastasia looked Taliya over only to see the rain causing Taliya's clothes to cling to her body; showing off a little too much.  

"God damnit, Taliya!" she said in annoyance, still keeping her voice relatively low.  Certainly her voice wouldn't be able to carry as well in the rain, but she didn't know exactly how sensitive these creatures' ears were.  "When we get back to the Myrmidon, you're going to put on a bra or something," she said through her teeth.  Taliya stuck her tongue out at Ana and shrugged her shoulders again.  

"Well, maybe I can show them to Nao as thank you for-" Taliya said before Ana delivered a crushing fist to the back of her head to get her to shut up.  It was at this point that Nao decided to go scout for more information.  This caused the two women to look at him for a moment.  "Well, alrighty, Naonao!  Be careful alright?" she said as she moved her arms down to her knees and pushed her arms together to, uh, entice him to return safely.  Ana grumbled and looked towards Nao before he headed out.  "Just come back safely, alright?  We need you to be safe and healthy," she said as Nao left Charlie behind.

The gryphon simply sat down, eyeballing Nao as he left.  Of course the two of them will keep Charlie safe.  Charlie was an important creature to Nao and they wouldn't do anything to hurt Nao or anyone else they'd call friend.  Taliya would certainly not hurt Nao for other reasons, but Anastasia most certainly wouldn't because she wouldn't do anything to hurt her friend; it just wasn't the right thing to do to someone you put your trust into.  After all, Nao goes on the more high paying jobs with Anastasia!  Out of the entirety of the team, she probably trusts Nao the most; though every member of the team has their perks and strengths, she feels she could rely on Nao for even the most minute of things.

Ana turned her head to Taliya as she relaxed from the position she was in.  "Why do you like Nao anyway?  I mean, you're only playing around with him, right?" Anastasia asked curiously.  Something about her obsession with the new water mage was kind of unhealthy.  Then again, her obsession for anyone was rather unhealthy to begin with.  

Taliya cleared her throat and leaned back, supporting her weight upon her hands.  "I don't know.  He's REALLY good looking, he can be really nice, and I bet he has a really big --" Anastasia stopped her by blasting her in the back of the head once again.  "Oh god, you are perverted," she said before delivering swift justice to the perverted creature.  Taliya simply stuck out her tongue as she rubbed the back of her head.  

The trio waited for a brief moment.  Ana looked towards Taliya.  "You know, you won't be able to heal yourself on this job right?  And the rain makes your Flare Blitz less effective," she stated the obvious.  Taliya shrugged her shoulders once more.  "It's whatever.  There will be other jobs where I can heal myself, I'm not TOO worried about it.  But as you know, Naonao is an excellent healer.  A better one than YOU ever could be," she said in a teasing manner.  Anastasia grumbled a bit.  But the fact that it's raining gave Anastasia a wonderful idea.

However, Nao had returned to give news of another group of werewolves going in the opposite direction.  His hunch of them going off to possibly find another village may be inaccurate.  "There isn't another village around here for miles, Nao, so I'm pretty sure they're going to find a deer or something," she said before standing up having Taliya follow suit.  Ana looked on as the rain continue to splash upon the ground, there being a thin layer of water coming up their shoes.  After Nao arrived, Charlie stood up, ruffled it's feathers a bit and returned to Nao's side.  

"Well, I'm pretty sure Taliya's still a bit tired and I'm going to have a bit of troubles fighting in this rain," she mentioned.  She COULD use her Chaser Armor, but the werewolves would completely shred the armor, so that might be really dangerous.  "I kinda want to look through the village to see what's going on and, if this place really does have a cursed family, I want to see if there's something here in this village that could possibly reverse this curse of theirs," she said with a nod.  While she was highly doubtful that they could find something to reverse this curse, it wouldn't hurt to try right?