FicWad

CHAPTER 1: Village Inn Quarrel
Rain lightly peppers down as three teenage nomads steadily trod down a muddy dirt path. Disheartened, greatly angered, and annoyed, the travelers had just been freshly robbed by a group of second-rate bandits. Quince, the slim-built, loudmouthed, golden brown haired, seventeen year old culinary-expert of the group heavily pants and gradually slows to a walk.
"We couldn’t have had that much money to go through all this.” he complains, his hand on his aching side.
The other two stop just a few seconds afterward and both simultaneously turn to face him. Mitsu, the fair-skinned, regalia-purple pigtail-haired, eighteen year old, elementalist* female fixes her mouth to snap at him but instead just turns away from him in full agitation.
"You might not have had that much, but I had at least thirty-something gold pieces in my gold-sack.” Javelin, the athletically-built, caramel skinned, dreadlock haired, nineteen year old swordsman, voices, “That makes this well worth the run! C'mon, let's keep going!”
They proceed down the muddy dirt path to the fairly large village a mile ahead of them.

As they pass through the large wooden-built front gates, it begins to heavily downpour on them. At this point, they’ve already lost full sight of the bandits and begin slowly moving towards the closest inn. They casually ease inside the shabby inn, completely drenched, with varied degrees of embarassment on each one of their faces.
Quinces clean long-sleeved collared shirt had been soaked into a dirty grayish tone, Mitsu’s extravagant tribal robes lost its glimmer, and Javelin’s raggedy clothes had already been well-exposed to things much worse than rain. The front-end man of the inn couldn’t help but snicker to himself after seeing their downright pitiful condition.
“Can I help you guys?” he asks them in a harassing-like tone as they sloppily drag themselves across the wooden flooring of the inn.
“Yeah, a few towels would be great.” Quince responds, fingering the rainwater out of his hair.
“Will you be getting a room?” The front-end man questions him.
“We were just recently robbed by a group of bandits on the road to this village,” Quince tells him, “so we have no money for a room. All I’m asking is for a few towels.”
“I’m sorry, but I can only help customers that’ll be rooming here.” The front-end man apologizes.
“Sir, all I’m asking for is for a few towels.” Quince reiterates, feeling slightly annoyed, “Is that too much to ask for?”
“Sorry, but it’s the inn policy to only serve customers staying for the night.” The front-end man replied, raising his voice over Quinces, “So either get a room or scram!”
Javelin gracefully leaps onto the front desk and flashes his blade in front of the front-end man.
“What’re you doing?! Get off of the desk!” the man yells after seeing the shining sword before him.
Javelin held his sword to his throat while grabbing the man by his vest.
“How about the towels my good friend asked for as well as your finest first-class suite?” Javelin threatens as he grits his teeth, “Or do we have to get physical?”
“Security!”

Two buff men with swords approach them which immediately startles Javelin. He releases his grip enough for the front-end man to forcefully knock him off the desk, where he clumsily stumbles backward near Quince and Mitsu. Before Quince could help Javelin up, one of the buff guys lifts him off his feet like a flimsy bag of rice. Mitsu evades the other guard and Javelin hops to his feet while keeping his blade drawn. He’s not sure whether he’s going to help defend Mitsu or help out Quince.
“This is bad.” Mitsu admits as one of the guards moves in on her, “We should just leave!”
“No, block off the doors Mitsu!” Javelin orders, “We’re getting those damn towels. Make sure he doesn’t harm Quince, I’ll cover you!”

It had been a while since Mitsu had tapped into her elemental powers. She wasn’t sure if she was capable of doing what Javelin had requested but she frees herself from her concerned mental state, and all of a sudden two large boulders jut outward from beneath the flooring of the inn which block the entrance. Confusion strikes the guard holding Quince as the boulders launch before his eyes and Javelin utilizes that moment to attack him. He swipes at his leg and makes a clean cut, forcing him to instantly drop Quince and let out a loud yelp. Quince rolls to his feet, turns to face the man, and delivers a finishing kick to his cranium which knocks him backwards.

Javelin and Quince quickly turn to see Mitsu become violently manhandled by the remaining guard. She cries and tries tapping into her elemental abilities but she can’t concentrate fully. Quince remains to keep the fallen guard down as Javelin charges forth toward Mitsu and the other guard with his blade in hand. With his hands and arms busy squeezing the life from Mitsu at the moment, he finds himself vulnerable to being badly cut in the next moment. Seconds before Javelin could swipe, the front-end man of the inn draws his blade to counter Javelin’s.
“You’re fast, but not that fast.” The front-end swordsman comments while lavishing his blade.
“Hmm, things just got a bit interesting.” Javelin replies and swiftly strikes forward.
The front-end swordsman sacrifices his vest for a quick dodge of Javelin’s blade and swiftly attacks after he finds Javelin open. The attack leaves a minor cut on Javelin’s shoulder yet Javelin disregards it and moves in closer for a more lethal attack. The front-end swordsman luckily deflects it and the two fighters continue to duke it out as Quince heads over to the guard holding Mitsu.
“Let her go now!” Quince shouts.
“Whadda you gonna do about it?” he responds, “I’m a little anxious for a good fight!”
Without a second thought he tosses Mitsu against the wall and clenches his overly-large knuckles with a large grin on his face.

The thirty residents of the inn were just then starting to become aware of the situation in the lobby. In full panic, they violently try to shove their way out the windows with their luggage in hand! Within all of the commotion of people charging through the lobby, Quince is punched, kicked, and tossed around lifelessly against the inn-guard he was opposing! Mitsu soon gets up and witnesses it and realizes she has to act quickly.

She closes her eyes, focuses in on her mana*, and lashes out hot blazing fireballs with a complex arm-stroke and fingertip motion. One of the fireballs is a direct hit and blasts the guard out across the street from within the inn! The other fireball smacks against the wooden-based wall and in seconds the entire room became a boiling inferno. Javelin and the front-end swordsman were beginning to tire out after lashing out against each all that time.
“Look what you and you’re friends have done!” the front-end swordsman snapped as they battled, “This was my only source of income! I’m going to finish you for this!”
“I don’t think so!”
The front-end swordsman puts his all into one last powerful stroke and Javelin evades it. Javelin could have easily killed him at this point, but decides to kick him into the rising flames and makes a hasty run for it.

Javelin lifts Quince onto his shoulders and leaps out a window just before the entire inn is fully engulfed by flames. Mitsu was already waiting for them outside the burning inn with an ashamed expression on her face. Quince was heavily winded due to all the punches and kicks he received, yet steadily keeps on his feet for the moment.
“Hey. Don’t worry about it.” Javelin says after catching a glimpse of Mitsu’s expression, “We’re all alive and okay right? Isn’t that what matters?”
“I haven’t quite mastered my mana yet…I screwed up and overdid it.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself Mitsu.” Javelin says, walking over her and placing his hand on her shoulder.
“We had no business fighting those guards in there in the first place!” Mitsu fiercely replies and swipes his hand off her shoulder, “I feel... unclean.”
“So do I,” Quince adds, “he never gave us our towels. They deserved this!”
“He was simply doing his job, he didn’t deserve that.” Mitsu comments, “I shouldn’t go on, I’m a danger to everyone and everything around me…look at me…what I did to that place. Look at us! We’re all criminals now. I don’t know if I want to go on if this is the type of life we have ahead of us. We’re no better than those bandits on the dirt road that robbed us. No better than the cretins that killed my people.”

There’s a short silence and everything is quiet except for the burning inn within the background.
“Well,” Javelin begins, “I apologize, Mitsu. I didn’t know you were overly-sensitive about~”
“I’m not ‘overly-sensitive’, I just have a clean conscience that’s all.” Mitsu quickly interjects.
“Hey, look, let's just forget about what happened right now!” Quince bolts out, “There’s not much time before the authorities come looking to find out who was responsible for this mess! We need to get the hell out and fast!”
“Well discuss this later…” Mitsu sighs, and like that they begin running off deeper into the village.

They reach the end of the village and decide to keep traveling for a little bit along the grassy path. It had stopped raining a while ago but Javelin could still feel the dampness of the rainwater on his feet in between his sandals as walked along the dewy path. The moon glistened between the clouds and eventually the three had to stop to make camp. It was already pretty late out. Quince pitched a camping tent with Mitsu from the long fabric cloth in his backpack while Javelin gathered firewood. They sat around the camp-fire with not much to say; still feeling awkward from what happened at the inn.
“What else do you want Mitsu, I already apologized.” Javelin finally speaks, “You’re going to have to get over it sooner or later.”
She doesn’t reply, but gets up and heads into the tent.
“Nice one, Jav.” Quince sarcastically compliments, and tosses a stick into the dying fire, “You’re quite the conversationalist.”
“Shut-up, Quince.”
Mitsu silently walks out the tent with her sleeping bag in hand and plops it on the ground just a few feet away from the tent. Her decision to distance herself irritates Javelin and completely baffles Quince. The fire dies out shortly afterward and they all decide to call it a night...though, Mitsu stays awake in deep thought and paranoia until fully making sure they're both asleep.

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CHAPTER GLOSSARY
-Elementalist-
as you probably thought, a being able to cast & control the basic elements;
(earth, air, fire, water, & light/dark)
--Mitsu's powers basically consist of light & fire power.

-Mana-
energy, ki, chi, basically magic power...in this fic, I'm going with mana.