Recovering A Relic

-Outside the Silent Cemetery gates-

Landing outside the cemetery gates on her Winged Lion, Leona dismounted the summon and dispelled it. Wearing her green-and-gold outfit with Adaptable Armor and Argent Gloves, Leona was also carrying her Silver Longsword on her left hip. She was here to carry out the long-delayed project of recovering a relic of Carl K. Blazkowitz from Silent Cemetery. There was not a single human anywhere around her, which was good. She put a set of cloth covers for the gloves over the metal plates so that they did not gleam in the moonlight and give her away to the zombies that were bound to be roaming the cemetery in search of prey.

With the cloth covers on her Argent Gloves, Leona opened the cemetery gate and went inside.

-Inside Silent Cemetery-

Leona shut the door behind her and stood facing a pathway that was placed in the middle of rows of tombstones. She walked carefully down the path while on the lookout for any zombies that might pop up from the ground beneath her. She had forgotten to carry her anti-curse vials with her, so she would have to be really careful not to get bitten by one of the undead.

Leona walked down the path until she came to a fork in the road. She went right and began to hear the cawing of crows near a row of tombstones that were beginning to lean on their sides, some leaning left and some leaning right. Leona paused in place. She had never heard the cawing of crows on any of her previous trips to Silent Cemetery. The blonde looked up and saw a tree without any leaves... and a tree with twenty crows with blood red eyes flapping their wings and grooming themselves!

She instinctively backed away as the crows began to look towards her and caw loudly. They kept cawing and growing louder with each caw. Then they took flight and began to dive towards her with feet out and talons extended. Leona quickly used a Wind Blast to knock the birds out of the sky, then drew her Silver Longsword and began to stab each and every one of them through the chest so that they did not recover to come after her later. After the deed was done, she examined one of the dead birds.

It had blood red eyes with black pupils and was somewhat larger than the average crow. It was also more aggressive than the average crow because it had went straight for her instead of flying away. Leona looked into the tree and did not see a nest in any of the branches, so they were not defending their eggs. Something was strange about these animals. Avoiding them would be the best thing for her to do.

Leona left the dead crows behind and continued straight ahead in search of Carl K. Blazkowitz's tomb. She passed by more rows of tombstones and a few above-ground burial vaults, but none of them had anything to do with what she was after. She was after a relic that once belonged to the man who singlehandedly invaded Infernus and stopped a demon attack on Earthland before it could even get started. Perhaps a relic of his would be useful in case she fought any more demons while in the service of the Order of Lightbringers.

Zombie Crows:

[Word Count: 570]
[Total Word Count: 570/1,500]

-Deeper in the cemetery-

Leona kept pressing into the cemetery until she came to a halt in the middle of the path. She saw a pack of eight dogs ahead of her, but something was off about them. They were missing an ear and some flesh from their faces, but they were still alive and showed no ill effects from the missing parts. The flesh covering their ribcages was also exposed. How they managed to survive those wounds was beyond her.

The dogs then turned their attention towards her and growled. Leona took a few steps back and got ready to use a Wind Blast. They charged towards her as a pack, snapping their jaws and staring at her with milky white eyes that did not blink. Leona thrust her hand forward and used a Wind Blast to knock the pack onto the ground. She aimed and fired a Wind Bullet at one that was climbing to its feet. The small projectile hit its head and twisted its head backwards from the impact, killing it on the spot.

The other eight got up and reacquired her as a target. Leona fired a Gale Cannon spell that hit one in the head and snapped its head so far back that she could hear its neck snap, killing it instantly. The remaining seven began to run at her, so Leona brought out Sky Champion Rafale.

"SKY CHAMPION SUMMON!" Leona thought. The green-armored man appeared and brandished his purple energy blades.

"Get those dogs!" Leona ordered. He slashed into the neck of the first dog to attack him, killing it before turning his attention to another one that leaped at him in a pouncing attack. He simply stabbed forward and impaled it through the mouth, the energy blade punching through its body for another kill.

Leona rushed to his side and kicked a dog in the face, then stabbed it through the body four times to kill it. The remaining four dogs did not back down... they had surrounded Rafale and were working together to try and bring him down, but Leona would not let that happen. One circled around the summon and ran at him, but Leona brought her sword down in a downward chop and cut into its body, stopping its run and making it yelp in pain. She took the sword into both hands and decapitated it before it could get up, then turned her attention to the three surviving dogs.

Rafale smoothly swung his left energy blade down and bisected a dog lunging for his left foot, cutting it down the middle. He then took a quarter-turn right and brought down his right energy blade to cut the head off a dog that had feinted a lunge and then sprinted right to throw the summon off. The last hound growled and charged for Leona, jumping at her with its jaws wide open.

Rafale spun in front of his mistress and brought both energy blades down in a X pattern, quadrisecting the animal in midair. The dog split into pieces that flew past them and hit the ground. The fight was over.

"Are you OK?" Rafale asked her.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Leona answered. Suddenly the pair heard howling and barking in the far distance. Rafale's eyes met Leona's.

"You had best finish your business here quickly. More of them may be on the way." Rafale counseled her. Leona nodded, dispelled Rafale, and continued down the path.

Zombie Dogs:

[Word Count: 583]
[Total Word Count: 1,153/1,500]

Leona walked briskly down the cemetery path. She walked past a few freshly dug graves with no one in them and tried not to look because she had seen the same thing on her very first job to Silent Cemetery. She had helped a scientist named Mortimer get Soul Sparks from some of the undead inhabiting the cemetery. While exploring the cemetery she came across a freshly dug grave with the shovel stuck blade-first into a mound of dirt. She had the sinking feeling that it was intended for her and ever since then could not look at open graves without getting that same feeling each time.

The blonde walked until she came across the body of a man being gnawed on by two of the zombie dogs from a couple of minutes ago. They stopped eating the corpse long enough to lift their heads and growl at her. They charged at Leona while snapping their jaws in anticipation of a fresh meal. She simply used a Wind Bullet to kill one with a shot to the head that snapped its head back far enough to break its neck. When the other one got within range, she kicked it in the face and knocked it down.

It got up growling and barked at her, but the mage kicked it in the muzzle again, knocking it down a second time. She then stabbed it in the chest with the Silver Longsword until it stopped moving. With the dogs no longer a threat, Leona turned her attention to the corpse that the dogs had been chewing on.

Leona carefully walked over to it and saw that the body was that of a man with an average body type who wore all-black clothing... or at least she thought that it was a man. The face had been chewed up beyond recognition. It was also missing its left hand and had chunks of the back missing from where canine jaws had ripped them out. The finishing blow was delivered to his throat, which had been torn out by one of the dogs. All the wounds on the body were from animals.

Speaking of animals, behind him were strewn the bodies of ten of the same dogs that Leona had fought earlier. They had either had their heads stomped in or had their necks broken from a forceful kick to the muzzle. The stomping was collaborated by a lot of blood on the bottoms of the man's shoes. The man had been unarmed and yet took down ten of the dogs before dying from his wounds... she wondered how he could do that since he had an average body type.

Lying twelve feet in front of him was a black medical box with a red cross on it. Leona's stomach turned when she recognized what she was looking it. It was the Aggression Pack! That was what enabled him to kill eight of the zombie dogs without a weapon!

Leona recalled what she had read in To Infernus And Back. It was a special medical pack that could instantly close wounds and restore a measure of health, but in exchange the user's body was flooded with enough adrenaline to completely block out pain... along with completely suppressing the ability to reason. It made the user unable to tell friend from foe and was thus as much a danger to the user as it was to the enemy.

She could not let this item be picked up by anyone else. She had to take it back to Silver Wolf Guild Hall and lock it away until she could research it in the safety of the guild hall. Leona carefully picked the black box up and immediately felt a mild surge of adrenaline just from touching it. She made sure that she had not been spotted by any more animals or by people, then quickly summoned the Winged Lion and climbed onto its back.

"To the guild hall!" Leona thought. The lion immediately took wing and flew for the guild hall. There was no time to waste.

No humans had seen her and the only "living" things that had seen her were zombie animals that were now dead. She had gone nowhere near the tomb of Blazkowitz and now had no intention of doing so. The Aggression Pack had to be taken to the guild hall and locked away.

Aggression Pack:

[Word Count: 743]
[Total Word Count: 1,896/1,500]