NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: No tagging, taggers will be fed to the other kind of wraith, the ones from Stargate Atlantis.

IC:

Gaara, the Godaime Kazekage looked over his desk at the ninja known as Eamonn Jarlath. A former Jedi, he was now overseeing the training of three important members of Hidden Sands recently graduated ninja’s. All three were just nine years old.

“You really think they are ready for a mission like this?” Eamonn questioned the Kazekage, his eyes were hidden by his trademark sunglasses.

Gaara eyed him as if to say how dare Eamonn question whom he gave missions to. “They are the best that we have who aren’t already out on missions,” he replied. “My decision is final.”

Eamonn folded his arms and nodded. “And the name of the Godulan diplomat?”

The Kazekage looked through the papers on his desk, it took him a few minutes to locate the right document. “Sevren Aktei,” he said after a few moments.

There was a small explosion of purple smoke and Prince Gabriel Daniel Wagner appeared above the desk. He was hanging from the light fixture by way of a tail. He looked just like King Kurt II, except the young prince had the same blond haire and blue eyes of Lord Quatre Wagner. “Cool a new mission, what is it?” he asked. Another two small explosions and the blue elf was on his feet next to Eamonn.

“You and your comrades are to protect a diplomat from a group of necromancers,” Gaara explained.

“That’ll be easy,” the prince grinned.

“Gabriel…” Eamonn began, but the prince quickly cut him off.

“Daniel,” he corrected, waving an arm at his sensei.

The Kazekage shook his head, “Your fathers would be most disappointed for you to drop the name Gabriel like that,” he said.

To which Daniel just shrugged. “Well I prefer Daniel.”

“He’s not still going on about his name is he?” came a girl’s voice from behind them. “You are so predictable.”

Behind them, just inside the door was a black haired girl with a fan across her back, she looked rather bored looking expression upon her face. Stood slightly behind her was a brown haired boy in black robes and strange purple markings on his face, looking slightly more like a ninja then the others, at least at first look anyway. Like the girl, he wore a large weapon on his back, in his case it was something hidden away by bandages. There was something else about him, out of the front of his robes looked a back cat, the boys eyes were exactly like the eyes of the cat.

“Bite my furry blue arse Katana,” Daniel replied, folding in arms.

Gaara narrowed his eyes at them, if they were going to make him regret giving them this mission then they were going to pay dearly. The sand in his gourd grew restless as he thought back the urge to kill, an urge that he used to always let take over since he was six. “Mr Aktei will be awaiting your arrival downstairs,” he then told them

***

Somewhere in the forests of Dark Valley.

“Brodyr 'n ang pinatatamaan chyfnertha,” Said a dark figure, dressed in dark clothing. (Our target has help)

“A dydyn?” a second figure asked. (And they are?)

Around a fire stood a small group of robed figures. They were largely unknown and only the members knew their true name, outsiders knew them as ‘The Brotherhood of the Wraith’. Though their numbers were few, they strived for power and to first overthrow Gahlagæer for control of the dark county, before possibly the rest of the planet. But for now their eyes were on a simple diplomat whom they believed contains the dark power needed in their quest. Why he was chosen was down to an all-seeing eye spell as they saw Sevren Aktei encased in a black aura.

“Dywod nin,” the dark figure replied. (Sand nin)

***

Eamonn led the three Genin down to where Sevren Aktei would be waiting for them. The room was a lobby where the village elders used to come and wait before talking to previous Kazekage, it kept the usual tone of the hidden village. The walls were sandrock, the furniture however looked rather expensive and rather comfortable. As they walked down the stairs from the Kazekage’s office, Eamonn looked around.

“Mr Aktei?” he called out.

Sevren sat in one of the more comfortable chairs, looking out a far window and twirling what appeared to be a square golden coin amidst his fingers. He turned immediately at the calling of his name. He stood up to his full height and began to walk towards the assembled ninjas.

Seven feet tall and lightly built, he wore a simple white business suit with black shoes and gloves, golden cufflinks, and a silver tie. His jet black hair was slicked back, and gray eyes focused on those before him.

He looked like a very tall and very lanky mobster.

"Greetings," he said, grinning slightly and adopting a somewhat serene tone. "Am I to assume that you are those assigned to my... assistance?"

Eamonn nodded. "Yes we are," he said. He kept his sunglasses on. "I am Eamonn, let me introduce you to my three young charges, Prince Gabriel..."

"Daniel!" the blue elf corrected, he hated being called Prince Gabriel.

Eamonn scowled at him, "My mistake... Prince Daniel," he then corrected himself. "Katana," The girl just looked at him, looking rather bored and Katsuo." The boy smiled and bowed slightly. "What do you know of the necromancers that have taken a worrying interest in you?"

"Well," Sevren replied, "first it was just a couple death threats. Evidently they think that I'm a suitable candidate for some sort of sacrificial ceremony. Surely you would understand that I have no interest in allowing my heart to be sliced out. I'm not really sure what they'd want with it anyway. Its not the original."

To demonstrate his point, he tapped his chest with one hand. Beneath sound of patting clothing, the ninjas could hear a distinct conk!.

"It'll take more than a flashy knife to break through to it, anyway. But still. They're determined. They even sent some big brute of a man to come 'collect me'. Only thing is he was neither big nor brutish enough to do the collecting. In any event, I practiced my wrestling skill, and learned that they didn't seem to care that I'm not an 'easy target'. which of course set me to wondering about other methods of sacrifice. As a result, I decided that it would be prudent to err on the side of caution and utilize your skills at not being seen to operate as bodyguards that nobody knows about.

"If I were to start romping around with my marines at the ready, people would wonder what's up, and not in a way conducive to continued relations. I need invisible protection. And so, it is with the conclusion that the very nature of being a 'ninja' involves 'being elsewhere when people look your way', that I figured your association would be the perfect place to acquire outside assistance.

"But of course... a prince?"

"Hardly invisible with this loudmouth," Katana said of Daniel.

"Yeah I'm a prince," Daniel grinned, seemingly ignoring Katan's comment. "Heir to the throne."

Eamonn silently folded his arms and stared at the blue elf. The prince quickly quietened down and looked to sulk.

"Of course it is most likely we will be seen," Eamonn warned. "We can be in the shadows, hidden from view and we can guard you in full view from all sides if the need arises." The jounin pushed his sunglasses up a bit. "If it is The Brotherhood of the Wraith that is after you then your marines would lack the knowledge to safely protect you anyway."

"Oh, I believe that would make this issue both harder and easier at the same time. On one hand, people pay more attention to members of royalty and would make it somewhat more difficult to remain unseen.

"However, we may not need to. Going through some form of 'negotiations' and public relations 'thing' would be plenty of reason to have increased security roaming around. Whether that simply forestalls the inevitable attack or not I wouldn't know nor care.

"As for my marines, we have some small knowledge of arcane precepts. We're rusty on the practices though, but if necessary it is a resource we can fall back on."

"Whats so suspicious about entertaining the heir to the throne," Daniel grinned. His tail flicked wildly behind him.

Eamonn nodded. "I would suspect that these necromancers know already of our mission to protect you," he said. "We will take all precations. Where do you need to go first?"

"Indeed," Sevren nodded at Daniel's comment. "Surely one would not begrudge somewhat increased security in such an event.

"With respect as to noted destinations. My primary purpose as chief liaison is to handle any and all diplomatic complications that may occur. Considering our recent establishment of ties has proceeded with a relative dearth of 'issues' to discuss, you would understand that my schedule is somewhat open.

"However, I would assume that a place to entertain the heir-apparent would be a decent starting point, but I am afraid that I remain somewhat ignorant of the distinctive locales within the capitol city. I would have gone out and learned the layout myself, but the death threats and very crumpled up fetcher dictated against that."

Eamonn nodded. "We can certainly help there, but since we are currently a long way from Exetergrecia it'll have to be somewhere more local," he said and looked toward Daniel.

"Pizza!" the young prince yelled out. "I'm hungry."

Katana flicked his forehead. "You're always hungry," she told him.

Eamonn shook his head. "I apoligise for the way they appear to be acting like brats," he said, giving Sevren an apologetic look. "But it seems we have our place to entertain the heir sorted out."

"Pizza indeed. I suppose the trip here has left me somewhat stripped for sustenance. My body may be mechanical, but it still needs food to work. Lead the way. I'm afraid that I know even less of the external burgs than I do the Capitol."

Eamonn nodded and was about to leave when he noticed something. "Daniel where is your gourd?" he asked.

"It was too heavy," Daniel replied.

Katana hit him over the back of the head. "Ninja's don't leave their equipment behind."

Rubbing his head, the prince teleported away. Once he was back, his gourd on his back Eamonn led them outside. It was a short walk across the hidden village before they reached the pizza parlour. Inside they all sat down around a table. It was near the back and away from the windows.

"Just order anything you want," Eamonn told Sevren.

The waitress was quick to arrive, and asked for Sevren's order first. The most powerful beer available was requested, as well as "an extra large meatlover's with onions and peppers and extra cheese and do you have those crusts with cheese 'in 'em that you can take off and dip into whatever sauce you've got? You do? Awesome! I'll take one of those and if you don't have ranch dressing in dip packets you have failed as an establishment... you do? Well no worries then! Oh and get me some garlic bread too."

Once everything was ordered and the drinks brought to the table, they were given sometime to asses the situation. Katana kept looking around, always on the lookout. She was good at spotting things.

"Everythings clear," she mentioned.

The four ninja's had ordered soft drinks, alcohol was a no no when on an importaint mission.

Eamonn nodded. "Good then," he said and looked to Sevren. "One thing we were not briefed about, when did you get the first death threat and in what form was it?"

"Actually," Sevren said in between massive bites of his caustic fare, "the first one was some sort of dream sending. It was like going through a sacrifice through the eyes of the sacrifice-ee, it involved draining my life force or something. I woke up with a bit of a start, and clunked my skull on the hilt of a serpentine dagger sunk into the wall over my head with a note on it that read 'You belong to us.' That was about two weeks ago and I didn't think anything of it for the most part.

"Then the second one was a package with some potion in it that created a poof of smoke that pointed at me and did a skull and crossbones. Proved somewhat disturbing to your minister of trade, let me assure you. And of course there was the big guy in black that attempted to snatch me up. Only thing is, he wasn't strong enough to grab me, and ended up getting folded into fourths. That last one was just two days ago, which basically set me to thinking that I might need some outside assistance."

Eamonn nodded. "Then their next move will be bigger and probably soon," he said. The jounin reached into his pocket and pulled out a small hand device. "Best to be careful, this wil scan your food for traces of poison."

Katana was keeping her eyes on the staff behind the counter as Daniel and Katsuo were whispering between themselves and laughing at some private joke. Out of the corner of his eye, Eamonn noticed an unfamiliar couple enter the pizza parlour and take a table near to the door.

"Oh, you needn't worry about that," Sevren replied, shooing Eamonn away from his pizza. "My body does a rather complicated sorting process with incoming nutrients. If anything registers as something other than the basic fuels necessary for me to function, it gets removed and stored for later removal. This can be either through typical... um... you know, or through this:"

Sevren brought up his hand and made a slight show of revealing his palm. At first there was nothing more than a simple apparently-human hand, but then three small needles poked out from the small bits of muscle between his four fingers.

"Its a simple enough concept. Eat your poisoned food, keep an eye on who is most dismayed at your distinctive lack of death or discomfort, walk up to him later and pat him or her on the back.

"Rest assured that I am presently empty, as per standard protocol. We're only dangerous if somebody tries to slip us something. I'm a diplomat, not an assassin."

Katana grimaced, remembering a previous encounter she'd had with poisoned needles.

"Interesting," Eamonn remarked, raising an eyebrow in fascination. "Seems you are already quite prepared, but I don't necromancers would ever resort to using poisons."

Instead he ran the computer of the rest of the food.

"Clean, at least."

The couple that had previously walked in were talking amongst themselves. They seemed alot like any normal couple.

"Yes, that's the primary issue. I'm prepared for big hulks who barge through the door screaming my name and uttering curses in some strange language, or the occasional idiot that thinks my diet could use a little arsenic, but when it comes to some fellow who for all intents and purposes looks completely normal who walks up and slaps some hocus pocus in my face, well, we've only had limited experience in dealing with THAT, and most of the time it was on extremely large scale. Its times like this that I wish I had Gendarmes wandering around, but their presence would be horribly compromising. Clairevoyant or not, there is no way to reassure people that a twelve foot tall man in a body tank with enough weaponry to level a city is a simple bodyguard."

He munched on another slice of his pizza, giving the newcomers a cursory glance, enough to catch their faces, and then took up a piece of garlic bread.

The grey eyes of the young blue haired woman looked over in their direction as a member of staff took their order.

"Well it would be easy to spot the necromancers in their black hooded robes," Eamonn then said. "Problem is plenty of weirdo's dress that way and are perfectly harmless."

"They're goth's," Daniel said before stuffing his face with a ramen noodle topped pizza.

"Indeed," Sevren replied as he took a look at Daniel's... exotic pizza. "You want some curry on that? It goes quite well."

"I think I've burnt the roof of my mouth already," Katsuo remarked.

Daniel looked up at Sevren, his bright blue eyes dulling somewhat. "I hate curry," he said rather bluntly.

Having given their orders, the blue-haired woman headed for the toilets.

"You never put it in your ramen?" Sevren replied at Daniel's comment. "For the love of any and all benevolent natured deities roaming around this portion of space at the moment, you are not a true aficionado of noodles and flavor packets until you have thought up the most insane alchemical mixtures to turn such an innocuous little soup into one of the most dangerous bioweapons of the modern universe."

He leaned back slightly, an aghast look on his face. "Doesn't like curry. Madness! MADNESS I say! If your hair is not falling off halfway through a bowl you have FAILED!"

Katana and Katsuo ducked under the table as Daniel narrowed his eyes at Sevren.

"How would you like to feel sand enclose your body," he growled. "Never call me a faliure."

The 'cork' of his gourd popped out and sand began to float in a cloud above him.

"Then treat your ramen properly! Never eat it un-garnished! Curry! Habaneros! Soy AND Worchestershire! Your creation should clear nostrils AND streets!"

"Don't tell me how I should eat my food!" Daniel yelled at him.

The sand was violently swirling above him to go with the young princes change of mood. Eamonn knew he'd have to defuse the situation.

"Daniel, we can't afford for you to kill the diplomat," the jounin warned. "Yes that might stop the necromancers killing him, but that means the village doesn't get paid."

Daniel scowled at Sevren as the sand returned to its gourd.

"I was telling you how to treat it, not to eat it. For the longest time, the StarNavy had nought to subsist upon other than ramen packets and nutrient wafers. For the wafers, imagine flavored glue. Regulations prevented us from bringing other food on the ships, but the rules didn't include spices. We learned very quickly to become master chemists when it came to our fried noodles. It needed to taste good, and fry our tongues for when we needed to eat the wafers. Now... even after we've installed replicators, we still see people eating the stuff un-altered...

"You have much to learn, young padawan."

Eamonn narrowed his eyes at the mention of padawan.

"Hey, I'm genin not padawan," Daniel pointed out.

By now both Katana and Katsuo and emerged from under the table now that the sand was safely back in the princes gourd.

"And I'll eat how I want to eat," the prince then added.

"A turn of phrase, nothing more," Sevren replied, "although it might do to point out that with the Coredians as our only major contact with respect to ninjas, it would seem that for them there is no difference, as they learn both studies in parallel."

Sevren waved dismissively and returned to his pizza. "You would change your tune if and when you try OUR ramen..." with a curt move, a single packet like a miniature toothpaste box was placed before Daniel. "Standard mod. Remember to read the instructions first."

Daniel briefly looked at it before he went back to eating his ramen topped pizza.

"He's rather stubborn," Katana whispered to Sevren, leaning closer to him.

"I heard that," Daniel said, his mouth full of pizza. "I'm not stubborn, your just bitchy."

"My my," Sevren said with a surprised look, "such language. And to a lady no less."

"Hey, I'm not a Lady, I'm shinobi," Katana replied. "For a diplomat, you seem pretty fucking clueless about our nation."

Daniel and Katsuo laughed.

"Pardon my ignorance, but I should assume that the two are not mutually exclusive. Is there some form of physiological alteration that occurs during initiation? If there is, I am afraid that the information did not come up during the briefings. Perhaps you would care to enlighten me about this nation's ninja orders, clans, or associations?"

"I am a shinobi, I do not do lady things," Katana replied. "I train instead of going shopping, I keep my weapons in pristine and not manicure my nails. I also get very dirty and I don't give a fuck about it. Beside, ladies don't use foul language."

"Indeed. I apologize for my mistake. Be that as it may, cursing from the royal heir is somewhat more... unexpected? I must admit that as my retinue and I have only arrived recently, I have not had time to interact with the royal family on less formal occasions. Shall I expect similar from them? All in the interest of being prepared, of course. I should like to not be caught off guard the next time a flurry of profanity originates from governmental persons of note."

"He takes after the wrong father," Katana remarked. "He has the manners of the King rather then Lord Winner."

"Bite my furry blue arse," Daniel replied. "I have the same kind of manners as the average Draconian and beside they don't call us the rudest kids for nothing. If you're upset by rude words then you're weak in mind."

"Upset? Perish the thought. However, cursing at diplomatic functions is somewhat looked down upon. After all, calling a warlord a bloodthirsty salad-tossing shiteburglar during peace negotiations is not the most conducive to a relation-building atmosphere. So I suppose one could just say I am not used to people using such terms so casually."

Daniel looked over at Sevren. "But said warlord is likely to curse himself so you'd have to grow a thick skin to deal with it," the young pring pointed out. "Not good for peace negotiations for you to run off crying just because he called you a shitsucking fucktard."

Katana rolled her eyes, she'd noticed that the woman appeared to still be in the womans toilet.

"Oh indeed! That's where this comes in:"

Sevren brought out from his pocket what appeared to be a length of iron rod about an inch thick and a foot long. He looked at it for a moment, as if trying to remember a particular process, and then bent it into a tight knot in one hand. He then laid it on the table, where it made a heavy clunk and wobbled about for a few seconds.

"And then I point out that being civil would be a good idea."

Katana smirked as she brushed a long black hair aside. "I could blow you away long before you could even finish that," she told Sevren. "That's what is is for."

She pointed to her fan as it leaned against the wall. A member of the pizza poarlours staff came over to their table as the woman returned from the toilet.

"Excuse me Sir, but are you Mr Sevren Aktei?" the member of staff asked.

"That might be true, but when it comes to 'warlords' I would usually have around six or seven Gendarmes behind me and a personal body shield active."

"Excuse me Sir, but are you Mr Sevren Aktei?" the member of staff asked.

"Unless my name changed when I was not looking, I see no reason why I would be called otherwise."

"I have a message for you," she said, placing a plate on the table in front of him and walking away.

Upon the plate was a label with weird Japanese writing on it. The couple quietly left as the label began to fizz.

"Shit it's an exploding tag, everyone out of the building," Katsuo yelled.

Everyone in the pizza parlour made a run for it.

Sevren scanned the words before his company said something about hauling ass. "Pop pop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is?... Oh..."

Sevren rather happily bolted, taking his pizza with him.

As soon as they went through the door, the tag exploded showering debris everywhere. Daniel had used the sand in his gourd to put up a shield to protect them from being hit, it worked and they were uninjured.

"Shit," Eamonn cursed as the dust settled. "Should have seen that coming."

Sevren held his last piece of pizza as he watched everybody recover from the blast. After wolfing it down, he shook his fist at the chaos and shouted. "You wretches will pay, PAY I SAY, for destroying my garlic bread! I had not taken a bite yet! Curses upon you and your family tree! May your deceased ancestors play host to very undesirable vermin and never find a comfortable resting position!"

Sevren uttered several other oddly worded insults under his breath, mentioning only slightly something along the lines of "...make you wish I hadn't decided to take your picture..."

Daniel dusted himself off as his sand returned to it's gourd. "Crap, that was my favourite pizza place too," he scowled. "I bet that couple by the door were behind it."

Eamonn looked around, amidst the chaos of the blast aftermath he could see any sign of them. Looking around, he saw the next best thing, "CCTV, that should have caught where they went," he said.

"We shouldn't have been that careless," Eamonn told the others before turning to Sevren. "Are you ok Mr Aktei?"

"I am at the present time unharmed and in 'somewhat miffed' condition. Were it not for you, however, I would not have noted that an alka-seltzer ad was somewhat more literal in its translation. So I shall thank you for facilititating the retention of my face."

He turned to look back at the blown out building and grinned slightly. "I took a screenshot of the suspects before everything went up in smoke, if it would assist any," he said, tapping the side of his head, then extending from one finger a small computer interface tendril. "The wonders of modern technology, when a simple glance can seal an image in stone forever."

"I took a good look while in the pizza place," Eamonn stated. "They were certainly not from around here, how they got into Hidden Sand Village I don't know."

People had already come to deal with the explosion and were ushering people away. Eamonn looked back towards the the council building in the distance. Pulling up his sleeve, he revealed a small computer on his arm and copied the image that Sevren had taken.

"I will have to speak with the Kazekage," the jounin mentioned. "You three will watcher over My Aktei."

Sevren watched Eamonn depart for the moment, and turned to the three other ninjas.

"Despite the interest being drawn to this area, I feel it necessary to go find some place decidedly less open to wait, unless I am needed to give some general statement noting that I was the target of a blast-o-gram, of course. Once again, I shall defer to your judgement whilst in this particular locale."

Katsuo narrowed his eyes, "You speak weirdly," he remarked.

To that, Katana hit him over the head with her fan. "That is a rude thing to say," she warned him.

The cat poppped it's head from out of Katsuo's robes and hissed at her.

"I know just the place to go," Daniel said and began to walk off. "Follow me."

"Do lead on," Sevren said, chuckling slightly at Katsuo's remark and ensuing misfortune.

"His comment was actually one of the less compromising that I've heard. I remember some child walking up to me one day while I was speaking with a minister of trade and shrieking 'YOUR TALK IS FUNNY!'"

Daniel led them to to a large building near the enterance of the village. Two guards bowed as the prince led them inside to an ordinary looking main hall. There were pictures of various people that adorned the walls.

"This is my home when I'm in the hidden village for training," Daniel said. "Unfortunately I have to share it with Eamonn-sensei."

"Comfy," Sevren said, taking in their new surroundings. He then turned to the various pictures and studied them closely. "Shall I assume that these are portraits of assorted ancestors displayed aesthetically in chronological order?"

Daniel shook his head. "No, just a few," he said. "They're of important people all through history, some of them were killed by my great grandfather."

"Shall I assume they had it coming?"

Daniel scowled at him.

"For years, Lord Azazel killed, he terrorized the planet," Katana told him. "That is why there is no paining of him here."

"Ah. I shall apologize for the faux pas, and express instead my thankfulness that it is not him I must deal with. My people do not react well to genocide and outright oppression, and truth be told neither do I. Had it been him I had to conduct relations with, chances are that I would have come..."

He took a simple look at his palm, then back to Daniel.

"...equipped."

Daniel just silently folded his arms.

"Bad family histories aren't a good thing to talk to Daniel about," Katsuo warned.

His cat agreed with a quiet meow.

Sevren took this warning with an understanding nod.

"However, it is important to note that while your family history may not be the most desirable, it is what people say about YOU that defines your personal identity. Do you work to right the wrongs of the past, Daniel? Do you strive every day to prove to others that you are nothing at all like your notorious relative? If so, then, I hope you will forgive me for this, but Lord Azazel does indeed deserve a place upon this wall, maybe not with these portraits here, but present nonetheless. The simple fact is that he still influences you, and it is dangerous to attempt to push his memory away. Disgraceful though it may sound, he is a part of your history and your nation's history, and if you and your ancestors forget him, another may rise who is just like him in all but name.

"Now, if you are not too blinded by rage from me speaking so plainly of such a dark part of your heritage, perhaps you would allow me to tell you a story? An applicable anecdote, if you will."

Daniel looked up at him, his tail flicking wildly from side to side. "Everyone knows I am not like him," he replied. "He was after greed for his own needs to gain and to conquer. I want to help people and defend my nation from those who wish to cause harm to the innocent."

He did however disagree with what Sevren said however, there was no way that anyone could forget the horrors of his great grandfathers rule.

"As long as the memorials to those killed because of him stand, no one will forget what he did."

"Oh, I do not doubt for one second that they will never forget the consequences of his rule. However, it would be very easy to forget the person behind such actions. You must remember the man himself, for one may arise one day who may well commit the same atrocities yet remain convinced that he or she is taking the correct and righteous course of action in doing so.

"Now would you like to hear my story?

"Oh yay, story time," Katana yawned.

"It has explosions and people dying surprisingly grisly deaths..." Sevren replied.

Katana narrowed her eyes at him.

"Fine," Daniel sighed.

Sevren clapped his hands together and smiled. "Oh good."

"Consider this something of a history lesson for a realm of possibility that many have no inkling of knowledge about. It begins with an individual known as Lucifer Belaire, a very cunning and very power-hungry fellow with a glib tongue, dashing smile, and intentions as black as the darkest tomb.

"You see, Belaire was what we call the Theurge of Time. This term is very much akin to 'God' save that the creature does not rely solely on the faith of its followers to exist. Theurges are somewhat more tangible, if you will, more independent. However, his absolute dominion over an entire plane of existence was simply not enough for him. He wished to 'take control' so to speak, of the entire Theurge Circle, bending essentially the entirety of the multiverse to his will, and turning it into a cesspit of human suffering and misery for the rest of eternity.

"There are three other Theurges in the Circle. Aries, the last of his pantheon, is the Theurge of War. Gaea, a powerful witch who goes through a periodic bout of death and rebirth much like a phoenix, is the Theurge of Harmony and unofficially of Nature. El, a strange being who appears differently to everyone, is the Theurge of Matter. Now they got along well enough with each other, but they saw precisely what Lucifer wished to bring about, and dedicated themselves to his downfall. However their combined strength was all for nought due to Lucifer's ill-concieved alliance with a trio of god-slayers.

"Its a rule of nature, for every creature, there is a predator. In the case of the Theurges, their one true fear was of creatures known as Phages. Devourers of particular aspects of reality, and effectively vampire theurges in their own right. They were nowhere near as powerful as the theurges themselves, save for one distressing quality: they radiated an aura that prevented any and all divine power from being usable. In combat, the deity would be reduced to a simple human, against a being of comparatively phenomenal power. Now, Lucifer's plan involved contracting three such beings to assist in the execution of a simultaneous assault upon the other three, and the effective transfer of all power to himself. And he simply waited for the proper opportunity to commence the attack. Marshalling his forces, a vast and powerful army of 'enhanced' humans, known as the 'Caleshan Valkyrie', sworn somewhat unwillingly to his service, he kept them training almost endlessly in order to preserve their already perfectly honed edge.

"It is on one such training mission, the last as it would turn out, that the first recorded appearance of an individual known as 'Sojun' occurred. A being of enormous power himself, he was at the time plagued by memories of atrocities of his past, and was searching tirelessly for a means of penance for his actions long ago. He appeared before the Caleshan, who were growing more and more worried that their service to Belaire would lead them all on the path to ruin, regardless of their success or not, and informed them of his intentions.

"Now it turns out that in the Caleshan language, the word 'Sojun' translates into 'Seeker'. And they had been taught almost tirelessly of some form of deliverance prophecy involving a 'Seeker of Peace.' Doubltess one would understand the effect the mention of his name had upon these vast armies.

"Fast forward somewhat, and we return to Lucifer Belaire's realm of the burning plains, where great demons wallowed amongst the souls of the damned, poking and prodding at the writhing mass of tormented souls with all manner of torturous devices.

"One such demon, named... oh! How it is indeed even a small multiverse! The demon's name was Azazel! Moving on, he was closest to the first of the Caleshan's Incursion portals as they began their attack to bring down their overlord. Azazel asked the first Caleshan troops moving through what their purpose was returning to the Burning Plains, and their response was to turn his chest into mush with a well-aimed siege tank blast. After this, the true attack began.

"Now it may stretch your imaginations to properly picture an all-out invasion of a realm the size of infinity, full of demons willing to die in the protection of their lord and master. We have motion picture and holographic depictions of it now, and there is simply no battle to compare to it. Millions, billions in fact, of Caleshan soldiers bearing down upon the defending demons, who not only had to protect against withering cannonfire, but also from the burning souls underfoot who, recognizing a chance to strike back at their tormentors, scrambled over and ripped and tore at the demons. In the midst of this was a ring of the most powerful demons on the plane around Lucifer's vast gothic edifice of a castle. Lucifer and his three allies watched with dismay as their primary weapon inexplicably turned against them with unparalleled ferocity.

"Inexplicable, of course, until they glimpsed Sojun walking up to the main entrance of the castle itself, in plain view of these powerful demons protecting the gates. Lucifer laughed at this strange newcomer's blatant folly, a laugh that soon died as the demons in his path were ripped to shreds in a matter of mere seconds. The four defilers were forced to leave their viewing balcony due to the rain of body parts and glowing ichor resulting from Sojun's surprisingly efficient work.

"The castle guards stood against Sojun and were killed. The wards throughout the castle were defeated as he encountered them. The traps, the pitfalls, even the on-the-spot creations of Lucifer himself were all defeated in Sojun's inexorable path to the main audience chamber. He eventually arrived at the massive iron door leading to Lucifer's audience chamber, and upon finding it locked and magically sealed, simply began to slam his fists upon it.

"Doubtless the four thought themselves safe behind the massive door, as Lucifer was regenerating it as quickly as Sojun dealt it damage. But Sojun's strikes gained in power exponentially, and eventually Lucifer could not regenerate the damage at all, as the doors simply fell in.

"The three phages attempted to intercept Sojun. Gunther Maximov, Phage of Pain, was the first to fall, learning firsthand what it would feel like to be crushed under a thousand ton iron door. Spinnere, Phage of Lust, attempted to bring him under control with her dominion gaze, but swiftly learned it was useless at the same time that Sojun formed his hands into great jagged edged swords and rammed them through the left and right portions of her ribcage, crossing at about where her stomach would be and poking out just beneath the shoulders. With one move, he sliced her in three. Gaines, the Phage of Greed, attempted a direct attack and ended up having all of his bones shattered and ground to a pulp.

"Lucifer and Sojun were alone. Lucifer did not feel himself helpless, and as the Theurge of Time, he could control how quickly his enemies acted. Stopping time entirely, he gloated at his inherent superiority, that the multiverse would be his, and that the Caleshan's betrayal was but a minor setback. He insulted Sojun, questioning his choice of attire, his maternal heritage, his motives for the attack in general. Lucifer gloated and gloated and gloated. All the while failing to note that the sounds of battle still raged outside.

"You see, the nature of being a Theurge is a fickle thing. In an effort to maintain simplicity and efficiency of transfer, the mantle will pass to the attacking party immediately upon entry to the plane if he is possessed of sufficient power to outmatch the resident Theurge alone.

"And so Lucifer only THOUGHT he had stopped time, preventing Sojun from acting, an illusion that was quickly dispelled when Sojun's right arm shot out and made Belaire's head do a complete 360 on his shoulders.

"Lucifer was dead, and Sojun was in control, and things changed from then on."

Sevren sighed slightly as he finished that part of the story. "Now, you may be asking what the point is behind all of THAT."

"Sojun, now possessed of the surname Majestatus, is the Theurge of time, and has essentially made it his duty to act as an arbiter of the dead, determining their lives after death in relation to their actions during their lives BEFORE death. This has earned him the name of the Final Arbiter, owing to his consistent fairness in dealing with the deceased, as well as the Magnificent End, due to his treatment of what he calls 'innocents', namely non-sentient animals and children who died too soon. He is wise and just, and eager to do what he can to prevent the needless suffering of others.

"In HIS audience chamber, over his throne, rest three enormous and very much animated paintings. Each of these portraits depict the likeness of Sojun's three predecessors, for Lucifer was but the third in the line. The painting to the right of the throne is of the first entity to hold the title 'Theurge of Time', a somewhat bland fellow known as Chronepsis. His focus in his duties was on the emotionless progression of time, and he dedicated himself to preventing attempts to influence the things of the past. They called him the 'Dispassionate Watcher', as he cared about nothing else but ensuring the procession of time to whatever end. Unfortunately, his actions did not earn him much support, and while a Theurge does not need faith to survive, it does strengthen him. So Chronepsis eventually lost so much overall power that he turned mortal and died and died after accidentally falling down the stairs and discovering he had advanced osteoporosis the hard way.

"The second in the line, pictured to the left of Sojun's throne, was a rather imperious fellow by the name of Cronus. A member of the same pantheon as Aries, Cronus ushered in an age of Theurge propagation previously unheard of, and also introduced the system that attempt to influence the past simply created new worlds out of the temporal line split, which simplified his job enormously and enabled him to focus on other things. He died attempting to combat a larger number of Phages, including the three who administer my nation even now. Cronus and his pantheon died, save for Aries, who was prevented from assisting due to not being on the better side of many of his contemporaries. The title was again up for grabs.

"And in between the two, directly behind Sojun's throne, rests the largest painting, the painting of Lucifer Belaire. Looking down upon the audience chamber with a mixture of contempt and rage. Now we, and by 'we' I mean the first merchants we sent into that region of the Multiverse while such things still interested us, asked him about the reason for such an odd setup. After all, Sojun himself had personally slain Lucifer, so why place a reminder of his rule so close and preeminent to him?

"Do you know his response?" He asked, finally looking like he was about to finish up.

The ninja trio just looked at him, Katsuo's cat had gone to sleep.

"No?" Daniel replied.

"'To remember forever his predecessor and enemy. To remember that even the smallest bit of wrongdoing in his position could lead to him repeating the mistakes of the past. And above all, to remind others of who Lucifer Belaire was, and the actions that led to his downfall. And to show all who wish to follow Lucifer's path that even he stood before Sojun, and faced the final judgement.

"I would also like to note that I have given you something of a gift in this story, though you may not realize it, or care."

Daniel just slowly nodded. "Well we know what to look for in our family tree, red fur instead of blue," he replied. "My fathers will not make the same mistakes and neither will I when my time comes."

Katana was tapping a hand against her fan. "Are you done yet boring us?"

"NOT," Sevren replied to Katana's question, "quite yet.

"You see, I mentioned that in telling you all this story that I have given you a gift, though you neither realize nor care what the nature of this gift is. It is not merely the story, oh no. That story is somewhat lengthy even though you were given the heavily abridged version.

"This gift is the knowledge of Sojun, both in name and purpose. As long as you know of him and his status as the final arbiter, your soul will never stray. Should any seek to drain your life force, or disjoin your soul entirely, their attempts will fail miserably. Sojun's grip is iron, and as long as you recognize him, and wish to deny the attempts of others to take your soul from you, you will be forever immune to such effects. You do not need to express fealty to him, as he neither expects nor wants it."

Sevren chuckled slightly and gave Katana a mirthful grin. "The connection was made, even if you spent the entire time daydreaming.

"In any event, that should also tell you why I do not much fear these 'necromancers' apart from the fact that whatever they want involves my untimely demise."

"I wasn't daydream I was trying not to fall asleep during your boring story," Katana pouted. "If you did fear them, then they would have taken the first victory."

"And I know they will ultimately fail. Truth be told, I do not even fear death."

Sevren sat back slightly and gave another grin. "Its just bloody inconvenient."

"Death is not an inconvenience," came Eamonn's voice. "It is but the start of a whole new worlde for you to experiance."

Daniel and the others looked to the ceiling where their sensei now stood.

"So says the guy that came back from the dead," the prince remarked.

"I mean it in the way that I do not want my work to be interrupted. I know full well that I could come back whenever I wish should my death occur. Unfortunately it would take a long time for my soul to regain substance, and I'd have to go through that full-body cybermod AGAIN. And that does not even include the slight chance that my death is so traumatic that my memory slips and I have to start everything over."

Eamonn dropped down from the ceiling and landed on his feet in front of Sevren. "An interesting story," he said. "I have spoken with the Kazekage and he has sent teams out to find this couple. They will not get far."

Eamonn looked Sevren directly in the eyes, even though his sunglasses his them. "I do hope that you are not expecting to be allowed to search for them yourself," he said.

"I would not think of it!" Sevren replied. "The last thing I would wish as a diplomat is to romp around the various cities of your nation actively hunting people. It is not conducive to maintaining relations, you know.

"Besides, I paid you to protect me, not follow me around as I turn into some form of commando."

Katsuo stiffled a laughter at the meer thought.

Eamonn nodded. "And when do you plan on returning to Exetergrecia?" he then asked.

"Truth be told, I could return to the embassy NOW. I can have them open up a foldspace gate and be back in the capitol in... oh... five minutes?"

Eamonn raised an eyebrow. "And how safe is that?" he queried him.

"Its a form of dimension door, I guess you could say. Unless you're stupid enough to attempt to jump through when somebody is closing the gate on you, its perfectly safe. If you DO try to jump through when somebody is closing the gate, well... we'll send your upper half back postage paid."

"Eww," Daniel remarked. "That's disturbing."

Eamonn rubbing his chin. "What are the chances of it being sabotaged?" he then asked.

"Well lets see... first the saboteur would have to gain entry into a portion of the embassy that requires a DNA scan and constantly changing passcode ID, then avoid the internal surveillance swarm programmed to note any suspicious activity, somehow avoid detection from the twelve psions who not only help me with my work and facilitate communications with Ptolemy and Thorn but can detect the location and disposition of anybody within ten meters, find and gain entry to the spacefold portal control room which not only requires a second passcode ID, but confirmation from one of the aforementioned psions, perform whatever sabotage is necessary while avoiding notice from the surveillance swarm and the psion, and then get out. That last step is somewhat easier as the whole trip would end in the very room one would need to be to exit, however if one intends to utilize the portal AFTER the sabotage device has been planted they risk setting the device off on themselves."

Eamonn nodded, "Then it is almost completely sabotage proof then," he said.

He looked over at his three young genin, all looking rather bored and Katsuo's cat was still asleep.

"It is the quickest way back."

"Essentially. We like overlapping our security measures, particularly when it comes to Surveillance swarms, they're programmed to vacuum too. So if you should happen to see a small patch of scarabs running along the floor and emitting a high pitched whirr, don't stomp them please. Not only are they durable enough to resist the impact, but doing so would set off all manner of alarms.

"Here, let me place the call."

Sevren paused, and his head gave a quick twitch. After a few seconds, he twitched in the other direction and grinned.

"You may wish to stand back for the next few minutes. He knows where I am, but doesn't have transponders relaying your position. Having a portal open on you is just as bad as having one close on you."

Eamonn nodded and looked toward the three Genin. They stood back towards the walls and waited.

"Better not leave a mess on the rug, the maid would freak," Daniel joked.

About two minutes or so passed uneventfully.

Then, with a sound that would be best described as someone popping their lips, a square doorway materialized just in front of Sevren. He immediately spread his hands wide, his grin widening by several orders of magnitude.

"Heya boss," came a voice from the other side of the gate.

"Dude, somebody tried to bomb me in a pizza joint!" Sevren replied in a tone reminiscent to a surfer describing a wave he caught.

"No shit?"

"I shit you not sir!"

"Daaaaaamn dude!"

A bald head with a strange circlet poked in through the doorway, taking in the surroundings with an impressed look.

"Posh!" the psion commented, then pointed at Daniel "You look familiar."

"Crown prince," Sevren clarified.

"Oh... shit dude, um... sorry. *Cough* Err, shall I get out the Crimson Dawn?"

"Nah. Not wise to drink when they're working, I think."

"Say what?! He's with the ninjas?"

"Indeed."

"Guess I'll be unlocking the guest quarters then. Anyway, best come on through."

The psion popped his head back through the gate and Sevren hippitty-hopped his way through after him.

"Dude, why do you always go through like that? Fuggin' goofy."

"Long as I'm goofy I'm not dangerous. Come on through you lot!"

Eamonn was first to walk through, followed by the three Genin. Daniel was pleased to have looked familiar to the other person, although he was rather disappointed at not being recognised as the heir to the throne.

The gate room itself was fairly featureless, white and sanitary with simple lighting. A small control panel rested before the raised entrance platform, and Sevren and the psion were chatting about the size of the explosion.

"An alka seltzer jingle? Dude that's messed up."

"Ain't it tho?"

As the last of the ninjas stepped through, the psion reached over and pressed a spot on his touch screen without turning from Sevren. The gate vanished from existence with a 'vrrm!'

Sevren walked over to the door and pressed a small button to the side, and it opened happily for him. He stepped through and the psion waved for them to follow.

The secure portion of the embassy was... well... huge, or at least the main atrium was, anyway. It looked decidedly open to the elements, but a closer inspection revealed that the sky was somewhat pixelated. Trees and ponds dominated the central area, and the place was rife with mechanized wildlife. Robot finches hopped about the branches, robot goldfish swam about the ponds, mechanical cats and dogs actually 'frolicked' through the area.

The upper level itself seemed to be made of some form of glassy substance that didn't give an inch under pressure. The psion stepped out of the room behind the newcomers and the door shut behind him. He then excused himself in order to return to tasks at hand.

Sevren turned to the others and pointed down the walkway. "If you would accompany me, I'll show you your quarters for... however long this takes I guess."

A shiny little scarab crawled upon the railing and gave Daniel an accusatory chirp.

Eamonn just nodded.

Daniel looked at the little scarab. "So that's one of the scarabs you mentioned huh?" he commented as they followed Sevren.

Sevren turned towards the little mechanical insectoid as it inspected Daniel's feet with single-minded intensity. Suddenly, it squeaked in alarm and bustled off towards Sevren.

With a twitch of Sevren's head, the Scarab looked at all four of the ninjas, chirped again, and headed towards the edge of the walkway, where it was met by another fifteen or so scarabs that also gave the ninjas a glance and a chirp.

"It detected weapons on you," Sevren said, nodding at Daniel. "I had to tell them that you were authorized to carry. Now they're just confirming your appearance for future reference."

"Well we are ninja's," Daniel grinned. "We're always armed to the teeth."

Katsuo squinted at his fellow ninja. "No wonder, you have sand in your teeth," he remarked with a grin.

Daniel ignored him and turned to Sevren, "Are they going to keep following us around as well?" he then asked.

"Not them specifically. But don't be surprised if you wake up one day and discover a few of them dozing atop your covers. Heck, they even work as alarm clocks if you want. Tell it to wake you up at a certain time and it'll hang around all night and start squeaking until you're awake."

Daniel's eyes widened. "Dozing on my bed covers?" he gulped.

Katsuo laughed, "Oh like they'd want to sleep near you," he replied.

Eamonn narrowed his eyes at them. "It would be preferable if they didn'," he said. "But after all it is your embassy and your security."

"They won't bite. They're not THOSE kind of scarabs."

Sevren bent down and picked one of the Scarabs up, it gave an interrogative chirp, then crawled about his arm, making its way up to his shoulder and onto his neck, where it came to rest and, strangely enough, began to purr.

"Discovered this a while back, the little vibrations this thing puts out in its present position assist dramatically with calming nerves and improving concentration. The rhythmic sound also works pretty well as a sleep aid."

OOC: DB, bad forum:mad:

Daniel silently raised and eyebrow, he looked rather interested in it whilst Katana looked rather bored.

"I still wouldn't like to find one in my bed," Eamonn remarked.

Elsewhere,

“'n ang pinatatamaan wedi dianc ni,” said the leader of the Brotherhood of the Wraith. (Our target has escaped us.)

There were mumurs amongst the other members. It was not good for them to lose their target like that.

“Arswyda mo achos Adwaen ble 'n ang pinatatamaan wedi cerdded,” the leader then assured him. (Fear not for I know where our target has gone.)

The flames from the fire rose high above them, the flames blurred and became a vision. Contained within the vision was a place known to diplomats, it was Embassy Square.

“Exetergrecia,” he told the other members.

Back at the embassy, Daniel shivered. “Shit, that didn’t feel good.”

"Hmm... scrying attempt. Ah well, not much we can do about those. Come on then, you lot..."

Sevren led them around a corner and down a corridor to a small and somewhat nondescript door with a small passcode panel. Instead of entering any code, he took out the small computer input from his pinky finger and placed it into a well-hidden socket. Two seconds later the passcode beeped affirmation and the door slid open.

"Door activated, passcode for the duration of your stay is 1-1-1-1. I'm fairly certain you won't forget that, though you'd be surprised how many people get it into their heads that the passcode can only include differing numbers. There's no need to get settled this instant though, and truth be told there's not much to see in there. Just bunks, a few desks, so on and so forth.

"Now, I shall show you to the mess hall," he said, then turned to Daniel: "Yes they serve ramen, yes it is Godulan ramen, yes it will burn your tongue off in a matter of seconds and we would not have it any other way..."

"It'll do just fine," Eamonn said.

Daniel just rolled his eyes and remarked. "I can handle anything hot, I'm a..."

The sound of Katana's fan hitting the back of the young prince's head seemed to echo around them.

"What have you been told about using that to boast to people," she warned him.

Quickly changing the subject, Eamonn said, "Lead the way."

Sevren led the group around a couple other corners, back through the main atrium, down a flight of stairs, around another corner, over a bridge, through some woods, until finally they an open doorway leading to a rather well-appointed room with what looked like ten large circular tables spread around it.

Along one wall was a simple enough food line, with little trays one could pick up at one end, collect whatever they wanted, and move on. A little sign next to the trays noted the special of the day.

MEATLOAF, MASHED POTATOS AND GRAVY, ASSORTED VEGETABLES, AND FRUIT SALAD. EAT YOUR VEGGIES OR I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND DESTROY YOU! --RHAUGARR

"I should warn you, Warlord Maximillian Foster had some fun in the design of our chef mechanoid."

From behind the various food displays, a head apparently made up almost entirely of razors popped into view. It took in the newcomers and stood up, twirling about six knives in its mechanical hands and... grinning.

"I AM RHAUGARR, DESTROYER OF CHICKENS!"

"Meatloaf again?" Sevren asked as if to disrupt the robot's train of thought.

"RHAUGARR, DESTROYER OF CHICKENS, ALSO HAS BEANIE WEENIES, HAMBURGERS, SPECIAL RAMEN, AND OTHER SHORT ORDER CONFECTIONS, GRAWWWRRRR! THE SPECIAL FOR TOMORROW WILL BE FETTUCINI ALFREDO, ROAAAARRRRR!"

Katsuo leaned over to Daniel and said, "He's insane."

Daniel nodded in agreement.

"I can see," Eamonn told Sevren. "I suspect it'll be all ramen." His eyes narrowed and turned cold. "I hate meatloaf."

"MILD, MEDIUM, OR NOSEBLEED?" Rhaugarr queried, indicating three sets of small canisters about the size of a pot noodle. One set was marked red, the next was marked black with a skull and crossbones etched on it, and the third set had multiple biohazard warnings emblazoned upon it.

The third set of canisters also emanated a strange orange mist along with what sounded like an occasional scream.

"I'll take Nosebleed, Rhau," Sevren said, walking up to the food line and grabbing a fork. "My Garlic Bread got bombed earlier, so I need something to fill up the rest."

"Medium," both Katsuo and Katana said.

"Nosebleed," Daniel yelled with cheeky grin upon his face, 'nosebleed' just sounded too good to pass up..

Eamonn just shook his head and said, "Mild, not particularly a fan of spices."

They had joined Sevren at the food line.

A knife parted Eamonn's hair on its path towards the far wall, where it thudded home and gave an obligatory wobbling sound before going still.

"RHAUGARR, DESTROYER OF CHICKENS, DEMANDS SATISFACTION FOR THIS BLASPHEMY--"

"WHOA! Rhau! He didn't mean it personally! People here don't make such a big deal out of burning their tongues out. They are my guests and you will treat them with the same respect you would afford to me!"

Rhaugarr's mechanical eye twitched with fury, then he gave Eamonn a half-hearted smile, revealing his rather deadly set of serrated needle-like teeth.

"EN... JOY... YOUR... MEAL... SIRRRRRRRRRRR..."

Sevren nodded satisfaction and turned to head to a nearby table. He pointed at the knife in the far wall with his free hand.

"Showy. Get it down."

Eamonn's eyes narrowed, "He does it again and I'll show him his circuit boards," he remarked, sitting down at the table.

"Lighten up Sensei," Daniel told him.

Eamonn said nothing more and dug into his ramen noodles. The three Genin did the same, as Katsuo gulped down his, tears were evident in his eyes, but Daniel looked completely calm eating the 'nosebleed' variety.

"I'm not even sure he HAS circuitboards. Maximillian designed him using Kython technology, so he's a lot faster than the typical clunky bot. You should see him on sushi night."

He poked his fork into his ramen, eliciting another little scream of terror from within the noodles, and grinned. "Habaneros, hopped up curry powder, several types of artificial flavoring, and a nice healthy dose of a chemical about half again as powerful as purified Capsaicin. You know what capsaicin is, Daniel? Its the exact chemical in peppers that makes them burn your tongue and the rest of your mouth. Its actually quite healthy for you, helps with all manner of physical ills, but don't try to act like it isn't affecting you. Your nostrils are smoking."

He brought a single forkfull of the steaming noodles to his mouth and took in a few noodles at a time. He swirled it around in his mouth for a moment, gulped it down, twitched, and looked up at the ceiling with an expression reminiscent to a combination of rapture and being electrified. A strange laugh came from him for about ten seconds, then he looked back down and took in another forkfull.

Daniel laughed, "It's really not that hot," he replied and belched a ball of flame into the air.

"Don't show off, it makes you look a moron," Katana replied, she wiped away a tear from her eyes.

"Its just shock for the most part. Gulp it down like he does and there's so much in there that the mouth actually feels somewhat cold. That's just the synapses being so overloaded that they start sending awkward messages. Chances are for the next week or so everything will taste like beef jerky."

"What you see is not always what actually is," Eamonn muttered, slurping down the noodles.

Katsuo let out a yelp and gupled down water fast.

"Amateur," Daniel remarked. "My synapses are fine."

"Amateur? Heh. I simply prefer to revel in the taste. Remember what I said about nutrient wafers and glue? There's no point in eating something that hot if you simply will the pain away, although I'll commend your self-control on that point. Truth be told I could turn my pain sensation off for the duration of eating this ramen, but where's the fun in that?"

Daniel just rolled his eyes and pointed at Katsuo who looked in some discomfort. "Him," he replied. "I'm not like them and that's not just the blue fur either."

"Indeed? Do tell," Sevren said before taking in another small bit of Ramen.

"I have loads more chakra then they do," Daniel grinned.

Katana narrowed her eyes at him while Katsuo was too busy dealing with his burning mouth. His cat was now sat on his shoulder staring at Sevren.

Sevren noted the cat's expression and gave a quick hand signal.

From out of nowhere, a knife with a half-cut salmon fillet thudded into the table.

"Just occured to me that the cat has not been fed."

The cat leapt off Katsuo's shoulder and landed in front of the fillet. He sniffed it, looked towards Katsuo who nodded at him. The cat grabbed at the fillet, tearing it from the knife and ran under the table to eat.

"So what do you do for fun around here?" Daniel asked.

"We're not here to have fun," Katana sternly told him.

"Well, hmm..."

Sevren took another mouthful of ramen and looked at the knife lodged into the tabletop with a ponderous expression.

"Fun... fun... fun... hmm..."

"RAUGARR, DESTROYER OF CHICKENS, DECLARES THAT THERE IS A VIRTUAL ARCADE ON THE SECOND FLOOR! COMBAT SIMS AND DUELING GAMES TO BOTH AMUSE AND CHALLENGE!"

"Oh yeah, that. Need to put in some new sims I think, though. They're too easy for me anymore. We also have a small exercise area adjacent to it."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "A virtual arcade sounds fun," he said, grinning. "The combat sim should keep our skill up, right sensei?"

Eamonn just cooly nodded.

"Anything to get my mind off my burning mouth," Katsuo said before gulping down more water.

"The combat sim is mostly accurate," Sevren said in between bites of Ramen, "and can allow duplication of special abilities in the simulation, though thus far we have only tested it with Psionics and force capability. I'm not sure what it would do with that whole mystical ninjutsu bit. There's a 'quest mode' too, that enables one to conduct various operations in a digital environment. Covert operations, subterfuge, full-scale combat sequences, many-on-one situations... all with pre-programmable 'abilities' for each situation. Attempting a covert insertion quest with all the guards having the same skills as fully fledged Sith Lords, for instance, is the second hardest level."

"Sounds good to me," Daniel grinned. "So what's the hardest level then?"

"They're all Kelvin. He's just a kid for the most part, around sixteen years old or so. The son of Sojun himself, really, though only HE would know why he was put here. In any event, imagine a child who has had seven years of non-stop training in the most harrowing special forces corps the Godulans have ever devised, skilled in both psionics and arcanism and the use of one to supplement the other, playing host to several particularly interesting critters that increase his speed, strength, and durability to even MORE inhuman levels, enable him to defy gravity in more ways than many can even imagine, provide him with an immunity to any form of telepathy, and allows the ability to phase out of reality such that he can swim through solid rock like water.

"Needless to say, nobody's EVER beaten that level."

Katana hit Daniel in the back of the head. "Don't even think about it," she warned.

"Hey," Daniel protested, rubbing the back of his head. "I wasn't going to ask for that level, he sounds like a freak. I could take on a few Sith Lords though."

"Well, the boss of the Sith Lord difficulty is a Kelvin anyway. Can't be sure what the boss is for the ultra-hard difficulty setting because nobody's gotten there. Even with cheats."

"Not even with godmode?" Daniel asked, raising an eyebrow. "Don't tell me a godmode wasn't put in."

"There's a godmode... its just that on the highest difficulty it doesn't actually help much. You see, it makes you 'invincible' for the most part. Skin like steel, strength of an elephant, so on so forth. Its just that Kelvin wields this rather interesting sword that slices through anything. And if he beheads you, game over."

Daniel folded his arms and smirked. "Then it's not a godmode," he replied.

At this point Katana was looking fed up, she didn't find the chat the least bit interesting.

"If it was a godmode then his weapon would have no effect."

"Its the mechanics of the game, unfortunately. You'll stop lightsabers and bullets cold, but Kelvin's sword essentially just 'creates' a space between your neck and your shoulders. Its not a slicing action or anything, its just that according to the universe, your head is no longer on top of your shoulders. Its how it works in the real world. The Special Forces don't use lightsabers, they use specially-shaped rips in spacetime. Even Gods can have their limbs lopped off that way."

Daniel briefly looked over at Eamonn. "Now I know someone who could leave this Kelvin as a blubbering crybaby," he grinned. "But only because he's good at hacking."

Sevren chuckled slightly as he finally finished off his ramen. "As are we all. The creators of the game were aware of the Kobayashi Maru tactic. The game turns itself off whenever any access points are opened, 'to prevent power surges during maintenance', and no individual piece will activate until it is reset into its original position."

Daniel laughed, "Namus doesn't need access points," he said and tapped his head.

"While I can't be certain whether they've put in any measures to defend against Datasentient Telepathy, I'm willing to bet they put in SOME measure against it."

"If it's anything like the firewalls that the Kukai Foundation use, it'll be a nasty shock to the mind," Daniel grinned.

Katana finished her ramen noodles and looked towards Sevren. "Are there any normal, non-virtual training rooms?" she asked.

"Well, there's two choices for that, really. We have a little combat training room, and then there's the large Zen Garden you all saw when we arrived. We spoke with the Coredian ninja schools, and it seems that the garden is an adequate practice area for honing one's Chakra. It is of course your choice as to which you would prefer to visit, but just remember, the combat training area isn't without its own set of difficulties. Namely Adjutant Vernon, our chief of security. He is almost always present there, meditating and listening to all manner of radio broadcasts."

"The tree's are good for honing in ones chakra," Katana replied. "Does he hate being disturbed while meditating or something?"

"Oh no, simply that you will already have a sparring partner."

"Oh that wouldn't be a problem then," Katana replied, placing her hands behind her head.

"Just don't expect him to go easy on you... or to BE easy. But then I doubt you would prefer it any other way." He then turned to the dervish of a robot behind the counter. "Raugarr! Get some milk for mister Katsuo."

Sevren deftly caught the small box of ice-cold milk from its wide arc through the air and placed it before Katsuo. "Water is only a temporary reprieve. This milk will neutralize some of the acids you took in and offer more effective respite from the pain. Its fat-free. The only other solution to your plight is a shot of Hellfire but... none of you would be ready for that... giving it to an unsuspecting diplomat would be a declaration of war."

Katsuo quickly downed the milk. His mouth was really burning.

"Hellfire?" Daniel asked. "What's that?"

Sevren pursed his lips slightly then began. "Its a form of alcoholic beverage that just so happens to include one of our proudest achievements of chemical engineering. It contains a helthy amount of an innocuous little enzyme that converts bodily fluids into alcohol. Saliva primarily, and a goodly portion of stomach fluids. Before it gets dissolved, it has turned a single drop of HellFire into the equivalent of a shot of several thousand-proof insanity.

"An odd turn about this drink is that for some reason, those who take it begin rolling around on the floor and spouting highly exotic mathematical formulas. We never were able to find out why, or how it turns out that the formulas actually check out and are so useful...

"Nevertheless, drinking too much is a recipe for disaster."

"You people are mad," Katana remarked.

Eamonn just silently watched on.

"Yes, it is to be expected. We spent much of our early history on an alternate world in what we termed 'the wacky region of the multiverse'. While that particular universe was a bastion of sanity in an otherwise maddening environment, I would not discount the possibility of some of that 'wackiness' rubbing off on us."

Katana's eyes narrowed. "I'm going to stop talking to you now," she said, still eyeing him.

"Don't mind her, she's in another of her moods," Daniel grinned. "So when can we start this combat sim?"

"Daniel, you've just eaten," Eamonn pointed out.

"Oh come on," the young prince protested.

"Unless we implemented some addendum about waiting 30 minutes after eating to jump into the virtual reality when I was not looking, there is no reason not to do it now."

"See," Daniel said, grinning at his sensei.

Eamonn folded his arms and silently nodded.

"We'll go right now," the prince then said.

"Indeed," Sevren replied, "Although if Miss Katana wishes, we can show her the training room first. It is on the way."

Katana eyed him. "Don't Miss me," she scowled.

"If it is on the way then yes," Eamonn said, speaking for Katana. "I have a few things I must do."

"So it shall be," Sevren said, and he led them out of the mess hall and back into the main area. Down the main stairs, across the garden, down a small corridor, and to a small open doorway that seemed to generate a cool breeze as they approached.

"This is the training room, it should be sufficient for... whatever purposes."

Sevren continued on down the corridor, leading the others to the Arcade.

"It's fine," Katana said.

She said nothing more as she left them and headed through the door. The other two followed Sevren.

The training room was colder than it initially seemed, sitting at about 10 degrees celsius. It was rather spartan in appearance, with unadorned tan walls surrounding a large blue mat in the middle of the room. On one wall was a number of simple weapons.

For the most part it seemed empty, until a voice from above spoke up. It was an eerie voice, seeming as strange gibberish, but somehow her mind made sense of the lilting and slightly hypnotic words.

"Greetings, Miss... Katana, is it? It is not every day that somebody actually comes into this room."

The voice itself issued from a man sitting with legs locked in a standard meditative position... on the ceiling. He did not look very tall, and in fact would stand a foot and a half smaller than Sevren's massive frame. Black hair, deathly pale skin, and eyes of pure blackness that issued forth an eerie black mist with a strange hissing sound defined his face, and he wore a simple gray uniform.

At the moment, he was looking down at Katana with a wry grin.

"Don't call me Miss," Katana scowled.

She looked up at the man, he reminded her somewhat of a damned child. It was probably down to his cold black eyes.

"This is the training room correct?" she then asked. "That is why I'm here."

"It is purely an honorific," Vernon said in his lolling language, unmoving, "There is no double-meaning behind it. However, it only applies in usage to your birth name. I find myself curious as to whether 'Katana' is your given name, as going by the name of a swift and deadly sword would seem inappropriate in any situation other than being trained as a living weapon. Should Katana be a selected rather than given name, I shall respectfully withdraw the usage of the honorific. It would hardly do to call one 'Mister Atomic Bomb' now, would it?"

This would seem as a rather lengthy response to Katana's "Don't call me Miss", however it is important to note that Vernon's response, in his language, was only five words long.

"This is indeed the training room. It is a rather utilitarian affair. Mat, weapons rack, floor. You are, of course, welcome to it. It is not my training room, after all, and it would not do to kick out a guest simply because I like the silence."

Katana's eyes grew cold. "It's the family tradition to become a living weapon," she replied, never taking her eyes off of him. "And yes, Katana is is my given name."

She took the large fan from her back and stood it next to her, placing her hand on top.

"So, what do I call you then?"

"Then I am afraid that the honorific must remain. We are required to maintain only the most cordial of manners with those we consider outsiders. Direct orders, unfortunately. I assure you that 'Miss' is simply an honorific. If I were to call you 'Mrs.' however, I would not be surprised, nor blame you, if you start hurling things at me.

"I suppose you could simply call me Vernon. I have an earned callsign, but I am not certain what one would make of 'Dalziel'."

Katana looked over at her fan. "You won't like it if I threw things at you and I'm sure you can refain from saying Miss once in your lifetime," she replied. "Dalziel, isn't that usually a surname?"

"I am certain I would manage. As I said, direct orders, and unfortunately, my 'once in my lifetime' refrain was expended about twenty years ago.

"And no, the name is typical among angelic circles. Each name is for a different celestial guardian who is known for certain qualities. Dalziel was known for stealth and deceptive demeanor."

Katana seemed to look disinterested. "Celestial guardian?" she asked.

"It is complex. Angels, Eladrins, Guardinals, they are all celestial guardians. You seem quite disinterested in the subject, and truth be told I would not blame you. You have about as much chance of running into one as I do of getting killed by a lightsaber in one strike, which is to say 'infinitesimal', so I would hardly quantify knowing their names as practical knowledge."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sevren led the other two to another open door which led to a room that, instead of flashing screens and freaky interface apparatus, simply held several blank holo-screens and a couple of large immersion tanks.

"Take off your bulkier clothing and climb into the immersion tanks. Its a form of gel, and will fit to the contours of your body, though it is not invasive. You'll feel a strange tingling on the back of your neck, which is completely natural and simply a sign that the thing is establishing a proper link with your synaptic pathways."

He picked up a small breathmask with a tube attached and held it before them. "And remember your breath mask."

"My sensei once took a lightsaber to the heart," Katana replied.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The two boys just looked at each other. It look very strange to them.

"Not the way we do it," Daniel admitted.

Both he and Katsuo took their bulkier clothes off and got in, placing the masks over their mouths.

"And I have taken several. It is part of our training to acclimate us with the pain, but we are resistant enough to energy that even the most precise lightsaber strike is but a flesh wound. We are... very durable."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Alright," Sevren said as Daniel and Katsuo took to the suspension chambers, "Wait for the tingling to stop, and a small interface panel should appear in front of your eyes. It will have the names of all the games we have available on the right side. As you are very new at this, it would behoove you to select 'Tutorial', down at the bottom. Just will that option into selection and it will start right up."

Sevren walked over to a small locker and brought out two humanoid robots. He set them on the ground and backed away.

"You will be operating these 'Tin Men'. Feel free to walk around, stretch, bonk each other in the head, so on and so forth, the robots are failsafed to prevent permanent damage to each other. It is all just to get you accustomed to the interface, and it should only take a few minutes to get yourselves acquainted with the whole thing."

"I'll take your word for it," Katana replied.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ok," Daniel said.

Both he and Katsuo became aquainted with the system and pressed 'Tutorial' and began. They began by slowly moving the robots around, even bumping into one another.

“Fel gawn 'n ang pinatatamaan,” the first figure asked. (Do we have the target?)

“Do, y anifeiliaid ydy acha 'n hwy ffordd at eiddo leoliad,” the second replied. (Yes, the beasts are on their way to his location)

In the skies above Exetergrecia, three lich dragons appeared flying towards their target.

Sevren watched the two tin men roam about the room, bonking into things and occasionally swatting each other over the head. After a while he waved for them to cease.

"I think you lot have the hang of it now, you can just will yourself out of the program and it'll bring you back to the mainframe. For the most part, I would suggest a one-on-one combat sim, that's the third option from the top, in order to get yourself used to actually PLAYING..."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It is true that few believe us in this matter, and when lightsabers can slice through blast doors like butter, I would not blame you."

At about this time, Vernon/Dalziel floated from his perch on the ceiling, not changing his orientation until he came about a foot from the mat, whereupon he flipped over and stretched out, still floating in mid-air.

"Perhaps you would like to test me? I must admit I have never joined combat against a ninja, not even those from the Coredian Schools. I have only had experience in combat with marines and other Special Forces, and truthfully I am curious as to how you operate..."

Daniel and Katsuo did just that and waited to see what the combat sim would look like.

"I'm going to kick your arse," Daniel promised.

"You wish," Katsuo replied.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Katana raised an eyebrow and briefly looked at her large fan. "You just want to see what I do with this don't you," she smirked.

Sevren chuckled and brought up a small holographic screen. He toggled a little comm device and continued:

"First screen is weapon and outfit select. Gotta be stylish when you kick ass in this game you know. Make your choices and the fight will start right up. So have at it."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vernon/Dalziel shrugged, keeping that same serene grin as always.

"I admit it is certainly unorthodox. Although I would prefer if we made some small attempt to prevent us from killing each other. It simply would not do to extinguish one of Sevren's bodyguards, or to allow myself to meet the same fate. After all, you being outside the embassy is not tantamount to a declaration of war, which is the primary reason he requisitioned your help. Powerful I may be, but legal, I am not."

The duo quickly chose their outfits, before selecting their weapons. Katsuo went with alot of camoflague colouring, Daniel went for black, just like the ninja's seen in the films.

"I look good," Daniel grinned.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Katana's eyes narrowed and looked rather bored.

"So what do you need to do to prevent either of us dying?" she asked.

Sevren watched the holoscreen as Daniel and Katsuo materialized in what appeared a small clearing surrounded by ridiculously dense and brambly forests.

A big red hand popped up between the two of them, and a voice from nowhere shouted "Three, two, one..."

The hand poofed.

"FIGHT!"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dalziel's hand shot out to the left, and a big black steel quarterstaff flew from the rack and into his palm. He gave it an obligatory whirl, and shrugged.

I will play nice if you will...

Daniel and Katsuo began by trading blows. It wasn't much at first, really it was just getting used to the system. Soon however the blows got harder and harder.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I can play nice... if you wish," Katana smirked and brought her fan forward.

"Then please, do not let me keep you from making the first move. After all, it is I who wishes to see how you fight."

Dalziel twirled his staff again, his expression unchanging.

Katana smirked. "Right then," she replied and opened her fan.

Flinging it to one side, she created a sudden gust of wind as strong as a gale that blew towards Dalziel.

Dalziel, his feet still hovering some inches above the floor, was thrown mightily. It was a controlled flight though, and his feet and unencumbered hand thudded into the far wall that the room shook.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sevren looked over his shoulder in the general direction of the training room.

"Ah, so Vernon's making friends and winning influence again..."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dalziel stood up on the wall, keeping his eyes and almost annoyingly serene expression on Katana as he began to dance a rather eerie waltz on wall.

"Do go on!"

Katana smirked. "Just a warmup," she replied.

Once again she swung the oversized fan, this time however, several kunai accompanied the wind. The kunai headed directly towards Dalziel.

Dalziel continued his dance as the Kunai flew towards him. Just as they were about to impact though, Dalziel led into a lightning fast and disturbingly smooth motion with his staff where he twirled it over his head for but a single revolution as though it were but another part of his dance.

>Thwakkitythwakkitythwakkity<

Where the Shuriken went was unclear until Dalziel broke into song in English.

"I've got a lov-e-ly bunch of shurikens, deedeedee deedeedee," he sang as he turned the staff so that Katana could see the Kunai arrayed nicely along the shaft of the steel quarterstaff, "There they are just standing in a row. Sharp ones, deadly ones," he gave Katana a surprised look, "Some were aimed at my head!

"You give 'em a twist," he turned the staff so the Kunai were facing in Katana's direction, and switched his grip such that he was holding the bottom of the staff, "A flick of the wrist," with one swift move he sent them flying back towards Katana, hand-grip first, "And send them right back, instead!"

Katana narrowed her eyes, this guy was rather odd to her. She kept her eyes on him and as he sent them back, she defended. Closing her fan, she leapt into the air and seemingly became a blur.

"You aren't the only one who can show off," she replied, landing back on her feet.

In her hand was all but one kunai, the remaining one was heading back toward Dalziel. It was heading towards him from behind.

Dalziel's hand whirled about and caught the blade in his palm. Although the usage of the word 'caught' is somewhat misplaced here. He didn't so much catch it as he allowed the Kunai to smack into his hand with a wet slapping sound.

He stopped dancing, turned his hand to look at the Kunai embedded into his palm, and then at the back of his hand with the tip poking out about an inch from the skin. A small trickle of blood ran down from the wound, but nowhere near as much should have been coming from such a strike. With a sigh, he tore the weapon from his hand and looked at the wound, which still bled abnormally little. With an expression of extreme concentration, the wound began to seal, and within a matter of seconds the only visible sign of the wound was the small ring of blood around where the Kunai struck.

"How remarkably painful."

He walked down the surface of the wall and back onto the mat, shaking his hand slightly.

"Perhaps if I close the distance you will stop throwing sharp things at me?"

"Hmph," Katana replied with a sly smile. "And in that case, I'll have to start hitting you instead. You wanted to see what I could do."

"Indeed. I wanted to see what you were capable of. I am fairly certain I did not want to play catch with darts."

"So leave the kunai out then?" Katana questioned him.

"To tell the truth, I could have deflected that 'Kunai' as easily as the others, I simply wanted to feel the pain. However, were I to miss one of your thrown weapons, no doubt there would have been some damage dealt to the room, and I would dislike having to live through another of Sevren's hideously long lectures. You may use whatever weapons you choose in melee, as this staff can hurt you in return."

"This is a training room is it not?" Katana remarked. "Then damage is certainly impossible to avoid inflicting on the room."

"That would be true, but if you wish to become a whirling dervish of throwing stars and hurled blades, it would be more apt to use the shooting range. In any event, the protective shield on the wall only works on slower moving objects."

"There's a shooting range?" Katana asked.

"They may be diplomats, but they know how to shoot things just as easily as any marine. It is on the far side of the compound, with liberal amounts of sound-dampening as it sees usage at all hours of the day. I should hope that you would at least indulge me before you go charging off to test out our Quantum Renders.

"If you wish, I could speed things up a little...

Dalziel's staff whirled about once and he charged forward with blinding speed, his entire form seemingly blurring as black mist surged about him.

Katana nodded, she closed her fan and appeared to watch. Though Dalziel was a blur she could pick out the black mist and workout where exactly he was. When he was close, she swung the fan with enough force to knock most people off their feet.

Considering they were on a mat, the sound of the purported impact was quite impressive, though that there was any sound at all was the curious part. A mere gust of wind should not have caused any form of impact noise at all.

It was not the wind that caused the resounding thud, it was Dalziel. As soon as the fan swing had been initiated, he has slammed himself to the floor in a racing position. As the mist temporarily blew from him, it was easy to note that he had anchored himself to the ground not by grabbing the mat, but by seemingly melding himself with it at the wrist of his free hand.

"You did that already."

He yanked his hand from the ground, leaving no trace of its presence, and the mist engulfed him again. Again, he charged at her.

"No that was creating wind," Katana replied. "This is hitting you with the fan itself."

In a blur she leapt up, appearing to hover over him as she looked down. She pulled her fan back behind her as he feet touched the ceiling. For now she stayed up there, she found him a tough opponent already.

OOC: BLASTED SEARCH FUNCTION!

Dalziel kept running to, through, and beyond the place where Katana was originally standing, and when he came to the wall. Without breaking stride, he leaped onto the wall and bolted up to the ceiling. Closing in on the ceiling itself, he leaped again in the same manner, and came running along the top of the room still surging forward at Katana, his staff held at the ready...

"That is always fun."

Katana smirked and leapt to the ground, avoiding his staff. Bouncing off the ground, she reappeared back on the ceiling and aimed an attack at Dalziel's back.

Dalziel's staff smacked into the ceiling and in a single fluid move he managed to pogo-stick into the air, a strange display of reverse-gravity aerobatics that ended with what appeared to be a move that brought the staff whirling about in a simplistic golf-swing aimed at Katana.

Katana saw it coming and swiftly pulled her fan back in front of her in defensive mode. She had yet to come across a weapon that could tear through it, after all it was no ordinary fan and contained many secrets. The fan was ready to bloack Dalziels attack.

*Boonk*

The staff connected with the fan, hitting with a healthy amount of force, but an equal amount of force also affected Dalziel, conservation of momentum on a free floating body being a fickle thing of course, and he drifted off lazily for a moment while his staff whirled about again and he pogo-sticked back to the ceiling.

Katana was forced backwards and had to steady herself to avoid falling from the ceiling.

"Good hit," she remarked.

"Wee!" Dalziel said as he finally came to rest. "I would have hit harder if I were not floating in midair. I can defy gravity, but my striking power is halved when I am floating."

"I shall have to remember that," Katana smirked.

"Well, it is simple physics really. The strike pushes into you, but you also push into it. If I'm not anchored, I will fly away... of course some of the more experienced soldiers can ground themselves with a telekinesis pulse or three."

Katana nodded and kept that in mind. As she prepared herself, something didn't feel right. It wasn't coming from anywhere inside the room, it was coming from outside.

Dalziel stopped as well, and looked down at the ceiling.

"Animation energies... either a poltergeist or an avatar... very powerful... possibly multiple in close... increasing intensity consistent with proximity... I do believe an alarm should be activated..."

"As in undead beings?" Katana asked.

"Or a construct. I can only sense animation, but not what type."

The alarm went up at that point, a gentle yet surprisingly piercing beep that went off once every few seconds. The intercom activated shortly afterwards, one of the psions must have recognized the incoming energies.

"YO BOSS! YOU SMELL THAT? SENSORS ARE CLEAR BUT ITS THERE..."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sevren tapped a small button on one of the holodisplays in the game room. "I am afraid this match will have to be cut short. It would appear that we have incoming. Just toggle out and you can leave the interface capsule."

Katana nodded, "I must find the others," she then said and turned to leave.

---------------------------------------------

Katsuo sighed and toggled out. Daniel did the same and they both got out.

"What is it?" the prince asked.

---------------------------------------------

Above the embassy, the three lich dragons circled above, apparently checking out their target.

Sevren shrugged. "Whatever it may be, it is most certainly not showing up on scanners. All we can tell at the moment is that there is some arcane signature registered in proximity. Very large, possibly multiple contacts..."

The voice on the intercom returned. "Checking for visual confirmation... what the hell are THOSE? All personnel hit the armory, looks like some bastard up and sent... uh... very large skeletal dragon things that most DEFINITELY do not look cute'n'cuddly."

Sevren sighed. "Oh what I wouldn't give for a Sentinel."

Daniel sighed. "Guess who," he remarked.

Katana finally found them and ran over to them. "How bad is it?" she asked.

Sevren toggled the intercom and spoke into it.

"How big?"

"Dunno sir, we have to use visual confirmation, so they could either be really close and really small, or really far and really really really big. That's perspective for you."

"Where the hell are the rangefinders?"

"Oh, I'm sorry sir! Just real quick let me go into the basement and grab them from under a pile of dust."

Sevren growled and turned off the intercom, which let off a parting shot of "YOU'RE WELCOME!"

Sevren returned to the three ninjas and replied "I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that they wouldn't send small skeletal demon lizards at us, so I assume 'really bad'."

Daniel nodded as Eamonn finally reappeared.

"I see we have company," the Jounin leader mentioned. "No worries, just means we'll have to do what we're being paid for and protect you."

"Indeed," Sevren replied. "I had hoped it would be a walk in the park and my suspicions would be unwarranted, but it seems that they have upped the ante to a level that I suspect would be rather difficult to surpass. So. Um. Demon-Lizard-Skeletons. We shall have to deal with that..."

Sevren wandered back to the intercom.

"Hey! Didja send word to local air-defense? They might wanna know about a bunch of necromantic monstrosities roaming around the capitol city."

"Gee, ya think?! I'm fairly certain THEY didn't ask air-traffic control for fly-by permission."

"Well didja?"

"Duh, yes."

"Need to give some damn straight answers, homeboy."

"The hell? Dude. There's freakin' Dracoliches roaming overhead. I'm insulted you thought I DIDN'T notify anybody!"

Sevren sighed and cut the link, walking out the door. The intercom called out again towards his retreating back:

"YOU'RE WELCOME!"

Daniel and Katsuo looked at each other, Katsu made the crazy sign and the young prince had to supress his laughter.

Eamonn looked coldly over at Sevren. "The dragon lichs will most likely be persued by wing gliders," he said. "We however, must get you to a safer place as they can bring down buildings very easily."

"Indeed. It is providential to us then that we always think of our buildings in respect to military options."

Sevren had not walked several steps before he stopped and stomped on the floor a couple times. As if on cue, the floor itself sank away into darkness, revealing what appeared to be a heavily reinforced bunker complex. The walls of the bunker complex appeared to be constructed of solid slabs of some incredibly hard metal.

"We made certain to avoid sewage and power lines in the construction of this facility, but it does connect with the sewer lines at several points for swift egress if need be. There's several other bolthole options as well, if you do not mind foldspacing a couple more times."

Dalziel poked his head from around the opening and ambled off down the subterranean corridor.

Sevren walked down the ramp made by the former floor, whistling.

Eamonn nodded and fllowed Sevren into the hidden corridor. The three Genin followed closely behind. While they were making their escape, one of the dragon lichs broke away from the other two who continued to circle overhead and flew down toward the embassy.

"INCOMING!" The voice blared from the intercom before everything went silent. Lights shut off, and all through the embassy psions and diplomatic staff alike vanished into the warren of reinforced tunnels below.

As the last of the Godulans vacated the facility, the roof thundered with the arrival of the first Dracolich, causing the screen over the main atrium to flicker wildly and initiating the embassy's automated defenses...

Having made it's attack, the dragon lich flew away from the embassy. One of the other dragon lichs instead took it's place, dive bombing the embassy.

In the underground corridor, they could feel the walls shudder from the first attack.

"Perhaps it was not a good idea to return to the embassy," Eamonn mentioned.

"I would hope that local authorities have some form of seismic sensors to gauge any attempts to attack from below," Sevren commented he and company hustled along a reinforced corridor with a slight downgrade. "Half the city should be aware of this attack by now and hopefully would be already reacting to it with whatever force might be necessary."

"Besides, at the embassy, we still had the automated defenses. Perhaps a dozen or so Cougars would slow these very unpleasant creatures enough for local military forces to put up a decent counterattack."

They came to a corner, and Dalziel stood with a strange rifle, faintly crystalline with an odd blue glow at any open seams. He looked down the corridor the three came from, then up again as the Ceiling of the embassy atrium collapsed fully under the strike of the second dracolich.

Only this time, the initial slam was followed by a frenzied thrashing.

"Ah, that would be the Cougars now."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the main Atrium, the Dragon had come to a rather clumsy landing, as the roof of the embassy gave way with surprising ease the second time around. And this time, the Dracolich would find itself tested somewhat by the mobilization of fifteen disturbingly large glossy black mechanoid hunting cats.

These Cougars, one of the mainstays of Godulan military and effectively a armored strike drone, growled menacingly and barreled into the Dracolich with monofilament claws and teeth, strength to throw massive tanks base over apex, a ferocity matched only by the Godulan marines themselves, and of course the standard assortment of an Assault Blaster and a flamethrower whenever the situation required.

They cared not that this thing was a large skeletal dragon. They cared only that it was the enemy. The other dragons would have to approach to assist their cohort, and the Cougars would be more than willing to knock all three of the gaunt bastards out of the sky.

Indeed the dragon lichs had already gained the attention of the local Draconian authorities and were now being persuded by a squadren of wing gliders. They were of course forced to fire very carefully and hit the dragon lichs and not any of the surrounding buildings.

The captured dragon lich struggled against the cougars for a few moments before returning to the form it had once been, a dead black dragon. All signs of its unlife were gone, it was completely lifeless.

The attention of the remaining dragon lichs had turned to the incoming wing gliders.

----------------------------------------------

"Cougars?" Katsuo asked.

"Anti-Vehicular Mechanoids," Sevren replied. "They're pretty big. About as tall at the shoulder as I am in full. Very agile, very strong, and very effective. If you want I could rustle you up a catalogue for Godulan Robotics and Mechanicals to check out the more technical statistics for the merchant version. They're actually quite a bargain."

Eamonn nodded. "We'll pass it on to those who will be interested," he replied.

They turned another corner and onto a ramp upwards to what would appear to be ground level. Sevren chuckled slightly as Dalziel led them up the ramp and stopped.

"Listen to me talk," Sevren explained. "Necromantic monsters besiege my embassy and I speak of business propositions." He turned and tapped a sequence into a nearby keypad, and the floor opened up above them, revealing the city above.

Well, the alley anyway. The two buildings were close to each other, difficult to get to by creatures of the Dracoliches' size. And a door to the building on the right stood open with one of the Psions standing at it, holding a piece of garlic bread and casting occasional glances to the sky, which was remarkably full of contrails.

"Dude," the psion commented as the five emerged, leaving Dalziel to shut the ramp behind them. "Its all over the news. The cougars beat the crap out of one, but there's a bigass dogfight overhead right freaking NOW. There's anti-aircraft fire from the Cougars trying to take down the demon lizards, and there's government forces trying to knock 'em down too! Everybody in the restaurant is watching the holofeeds! Get in here or you'll get beaned by bone bits!"

Sevren shrugged slightly, and wandered in through the open door.

The four ninja's followed closely behind. Daniel and Katsuo were whispering between themselves but Eamonn chose to ignore.

In the skies above the academy, one of the wing gliders was taken out by by the dragon lichs. It crashed down and skidded along the road into some parlked cars, the pilot and co-pilot both clambered out of the wreck almost completely uninjured.

"They won't be able to do much more damage to the embassy itself while they're fighting cougers and wing gliders," Eamonn mentioned.

"I suspect that was the point," Sevren said, taking a bite out of his own piece of Garlic Bread.

Eamonn nodded. "Doing their jobs as well as they should," he mentioned. "Is this a safe place to be?"

"Well, all of the Psions came here before our arrival, so I can only assume that the place has been scanned for Hostile-Combatives. Plus we have an arrangement with the proprietor of this establishment to provide us information on any individuals that come in and pay too much attention to the embassy. The embassy is not clearly marked, as you can see... apart from the gaping hole in the roof with plasma bolts lancing out from it... so anybody who looks overmuch at the embassy has to have done their research."

Sevren shrugged slightly and wandered off to the holofeeds.

"Of course, that doesn't account for scrying. Truth be told, I'm starting to feel that there will come a point when force of such overwhelming strength will be put forth that not even the presence of you and your students will be enough to stop it. So I suspect that it would really make no difference if this building is overly safe. I would rather give them a clear avenue to attack me in person so I, and by extension you as well, can figure out who they are and hopefully where they come from."

Eamonn nodded. "That is useful then," he said. "The Brotherhood of the Wraith hail from Dark Valley, we have alot of problems from that county."

Katana placed her hands behind her head. "It's governed by a necromancer by the name of Gahlagæer," she explained. "Alot of evil comes from the lawlessness there, Gahlagæer lets it since he hates the King for the fact that Dark Valley can't become a nation in it's own right."

Sevren raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like you would be rid of them if you just paid their air fare to another planet. Let them be a lawless hellhole elsewhere."

"That's the problem," Katana replied, looking over at him through bored eyes. "They won't accept the free ride."

"That is always the problem, is it not? We have a similar issue at home with a small group of Neo-Nazis. Although in our case, not only did they not want to leave, they followed us when we moved from Godulan Terra to our new systems."

Sevren watched a Dracolich dive to avoid cannonfire from above and below on the holofeeds, then continued.

"Would not this whole situation here be grounds for deploying some form of suppression force to knock this necromancer-leader out of power and restore order to the region? Or is there some issue in that valley that prevents such?"

"Both my father and grandfather have tried," Daniel mentioned. "Gahlagæer has complete control over the county."

"Even orbital bombardments and full scale deployments? Is there some form of mystical ward that prevents entry?"

Eamonn nodded. "Gahlagæer is a very powerful being," he explained. "We're lucky that he keeps himself in Dark Valley to be truthful."

"You know, I am not entirely certain, but if you get the chance in the near future you might wish to ask Lieutenant Vernon about the projects the Special Forces have been conducting on our homeworld. While we may not be exceptional at the generalized practice of magical pursuits, one thing I do understand that our Special Forces excel at is removing the arcane aspects of combat from consideration entirely. I think they call it Disjunction. The spell is very complex, however, and would take quite some time for anybody other than Adjutant General Majestatus himself to initiate."

"It sounds interesting, I'll pass the message onto his majesty as soon as possible," Eamonn replied. "We need all the help against him that we can."

"If it would assist in removing such a glaring threat to national security, we would only be too happy to render what assistance we could."

As they watched the dogfighting from the safety of the larger buildings, a missile arced up from the embassy's ruined atrium, lancing out towards the lowest Dracolich.

"Ah, that would be Lieutenant Vernon now. I was wondering how long it would take for him to find the straight-arrows."

"Thank you," Eamonn nodded.

The nearest dragon lich saw the threat and breathed a huge ball of fire at the missle.

"That could be nasty," Katsuo remarked.

Taking advantage of the Dracoliche's distraction, all of the Cougars focused their fire on the source of the firebreath, even as another missile lanced out, this one causing a strange buzzing sound as it suddenly surged like a rail-gun shell towards the besieged dracolich.

The dragon was hit by deadly force. The force of the explosion shook the nearby buildings.

Eamonn looked at the screen with a cold face. "One to go," he said. "The wing gliders are pursuing it as it looks like its retreating."

"Indeed it does," Sevren said with a yawn, then continued. "If you do not mind, I intend to retire for the evening. We keep a section of the Hotel above us on retainer in the event that we entertain more than the embassy has capacity for, or if the embassy should happen to have its roofed caved in by attacking necromantic constructs."

He turned to leave the restaurant, then stopped. "Of course, in light of current circumstances it might be prudent to have the suite investigated first by those who would know more about the enemy's methods..."

Eamonn nodded. "We know exactly what to look for," he said. "But we will have to call in a couple of others if that is alright with the embassy."

The remaining dragon lich was taken down by the wing gliders in a nearby park.

"By all means, do so. After the Dracoliches I would think it would be important to call in some form of backup as the group that summoned them most definitely means business now. I would be ill-advised to spare any expense at this point."

Eamonn nodded and began tapping something into a wrist computer he wore.

Daniel meanwhile placed his hands behind his head and looked toward Sevren. "Anywhere safer for you to go then stay here?"

Sevren looked across the street towards the compromised Embassy. "Until the Dracoliches came, that was the safest place. I should hate having to call upon local authorities or even the military to ensure my safety against creatures like those being sent against us now."

"That's what you hired us for," Katana said, folding her arms.

Eamonn walked back over to them. "I have a couple of people on their way," he mentioned. "They should be able to check over the suite and put a few wards up."

"Exactly," Sevren replied to Katana's statement. "As per my effort to keep this from devolving into some form of international incident, I found myself somewhat hobbled in options. I required bodyguards, but I could not send for assistance from Terivine as it would cause something of a ruckus and likely force these arcane terrorists into something more drastic than what has happened tonight. I can only dread what such an eventuality would present. I needed people who knew how to fight as well as how to avoid detection, along with an added bonus of being able to leave the embassy grounds without causing a breach of diplomatic protocol like our resident M'Lekk'Torr would most assuredly cause if he were to ever step outside."

He turned as Eamonn came back to them.

"Thank you. I might wish to have them ward the entire building if such a feat is possible. I would hate to have another building damaged in an attempt to get at me..."

Eamonn nodded, "They can do that easily," he told him.

Outside, two figures approached the embassy.

The two figures walked towards the restaurant amidst the occasional piece of dracolich remains, unhindered for the most part as they walked into the building as for some reason, despite their dark'n'shadowy appearance the psions seemed completely at ease with them.

Sevren eventually noted their presence and nodded towards them. "I assume that since they are not reading as hostile to my telepathic cohorts that those would be the individuals you sent for?"

Eamonn looked up and nodded. "Glad you could make it Namus, Tavan," he greeted them.

"We came as soon as possible," one of them said, pulling down his hood to reveal a young silver-haired man.

The other man who hadn't been wearing a hood just nodded. "So where do we start?"

Sevren thought for a moment. "I am curious, would you prefer to start at my suite and sweep the building entire, or sweep the building and handle my suite when you arrive? I have been told that warding a building such as this in its entirety is a simple matter, but I am uncertain as to what you actually intend to do apart from the notion that whatever it is will hopefully be VERY effective. Eamonn speaks highly of you, and I have the impression that such respect does not come easily."

Tavan, the silver-haired man, nodded. "We can sweep through the building," he suggested. "Where we start should probably be your suite however."

Eamonn nodded. "It is likely they would concentrate on that area."

"Indeed," Sevren replied, "I shall take you to it. Its essentially the entire top floor."

He turned to lead the newcomers to the elevator.

Tavan turned to Namus and they both nodded. "Lead the way then," he then said before following.

Eamonn and the three Genin followed closely behind.

The elevator was rather obviously a high traffic conveyance, as it allowed all seven people substantial moving space during the somwehat lengthy trip to the top floor.

Sevren's suite was big. Really big. When he mentioned that the room was the entire top floor he was not exaggerating, although he should likely have mentioned that the room had been 'modified' from its original version in order to fulfill the needs of the head diplomat in times of particular interest.

On one side was a standard living and entertaining area, well enough appointed despite its utilitarian setup. A great skylight and observation window overlooked the arrangement, giving the far end of the suite a slight greenhouse feel despite the scene of destruction directly outside. Sevren immediately walked to the window and watched Dalziel and the Cougars root through the wreckage that was formerly the embassy's roof, in the event that anybody did not get out in time. One of the cougars batted a dracolich bone away like a leaf as it nuzzled its way amidst the rubble.

A comprehensive network of viewscreens and holodisplays dominated the other side of the room, as well as many forms of communications apparatus, some of normal design, some decidedly more exotic in nature.

As it happened, one of the holodisplays was beeping happily and emitting an occasional blinking of a small red light. To any who bothered to investigate, a small digital readout on the display showed two words:

Call Waiting...

"Hey this looks pretty comfy," Daniel remarked.

Something grabbed Namus' senses and he wandered over to the holodisplays. His eyes caught a red blinking light, investigating further he saw the words Call Waiting on the digital readout.

"Were you expecting a call from anyone?" he asked, looking over at Sevren.

Sevren turned around in response to Namus' question with a quizzical expression. Suddenly, he hunkered down slightly and grinned sheepishly, creeping towards the holodisplay in question.

"Oh bugger... its from the top..."

The Holodisplay hummed with new activity immediately after Sevren's comment. The digital readout formulated began showing a scrolling text:

Voice Recognition: Head Draconian Envoy Sevren Aktei Confirmed. Communications Initiated.

A great light flashed from the display, but vanished as quickly as it formed, leaving behind a semi-solid figure dressed in what appeared to be a black and white pinstriped business suit, black business shoes, and a black fedora. He rested his hands on a cougar-headed cane before him, and his angular face turned to stare at Sevren with eyes of such a vivid electric blue that one could almost feel the energy pulsing from his body. Even the least observant in the room could tell that the expression was not a happy one.

Though the holodisplay had no speakers of note, everybody heard his voice loud and clear. The MORE observant in presence would have noted that the source of the voice seemed to be moving around amongst the assembled people, as if the voice was... scanning them.

"I would certainly like to know what has taken place, Sevren."

Sevren gulped slightly and approached the holodisplay such that his face was lit up slightly.

"Begging your pardon, Baron. We were indisposed. The Embassy was attacked."

Baron Skye's expression turned icier by leaps and bounds. "By... who?"

"Some insurgent group. Led by... Gala... Galagher... no that's not it..." Sevren turned to Eamonn. "How did you pronounce his name again?"

"Gahlagæer is the one you're refering to," Eamonn mentioned in a cold voice. "But you are wrong however. They are not ingurgents, nor are they led by Gahlagæer they are independant of him."

He looked at the man on the display with an intense stare.

"They are The Brotherhood of the Wraith, a group of necromancers seeking power for their own needs."

Namus, who was still stood beside the holodisplay, closed his eyes.

Baron Skye's eyes returned Eamonn's stare with equal intensity, although it would have felt like the stare was coming from several different directions.

The voice came from in front of Eamonn and directly over his shoulder at the same time. It was a strange accent, Olde English in basic feel, but vocabulary and inflection implied a grasp of a great many languages.

"Necromancers, is it? The Brotherhood of the Wraith?"

The voice moved away, towards Namus.

"And what, pray tell, might such needs be?"