The black priest sat in a relaxed position at the table in the great hall of the Tower of Rezo. He picked up a wine glass and slowly sipped its contents of purple wine. He felt a sharp poke at his back and without turning around knew what it was.

"So. . .you wish to kill me?" the black priest asked the new leader of the Greenhell mercenary assassins without turning around.

The leader who was holding her double-headed spear to the black priest's back growled her response, "Somehow I get the impression that you're not really on our side."

"Oh? I hired you, didn't I? I gave you the orihalcon armor, didn't I?"

"You must think I'm stupid!" the assassin angrily spat, "I know that if we wear the orihalcon armor we will be immune to their magic, but at the same time our priestess will not be able to help us with her magic. Orihalcon is not very durable when steel weapons are applied to it. And what's more is that you want me to stay back from the front line. . .I wonder whose side you're on. . ."

The black priest laughed in mild amusement. "Ah yes. . .I forgot to tell you didn't I? The orihalcon is not pure."

"What?" the leader asked.

"It has traces of marble in it. The impurity I added will render the anti-magic field useless against white sorcery. As far as keeping you back from the front is concerned, well, as a professional in your field you should know that it's never wise to play the best cards in your hand all at once,"

The leader of Greenhell stood silent for a moment trying to decide whether or not to believe the priest.

"I wouldn't advise you to anger me," the priest continued after not receiving any response from the assassin, "If you do, you'll find that I'm not a very nice person when I'm angry."

Something in the priest's voice persuaded (or perhaps scared) the assassin leader quite a bit. She lowered her double-headed spear from the black priest's back and backed away a few steps. She then turned and with an unusual quickness left the area.

The black priest sipped some more of the deep purple wine and tossed the glass against the floor. It shattered on impact but the liquid dissipated into nothingness before it could reach the floor. He stood up and gazed towards the ceiling.

"For almost one hundred years now. . .for almost one hundred years I've waited for the moment that is soon to come. Mother. . .I'll avenge you at last. . .you'll not have been erased in vain. . ."

The black priest couldn't hold it in any longer. He let out a laugh that probably would've given the bravest of warriors terrible nightmares. He picked up a wooden staff with a ruby head that he liked to think of as his weapon of choice from off the table.

"It's been too long, Sierra. Too long,"

"We're here," Kleo announced to Toshi and Sierra even though by looking ahead it was pretty obvious.

Toshi nodded assent, but Sierra looked off to the side. She seemed both nervous and sorrowful at the same time.

"Hey, what's up?" Toshi asked her.

"Nothing. . ." she flatly stated.

The three kept walking towards the tower. It was quite impressive. It must have been at least thirty stories high. There were large chunks of stone that had eroded out of the tower and fallen to the ground about the entrance. Battlements from the third story held numerous gargoyle statues all of which seemed to resemble a monster with arching arms and legs, numerous large fangs, and three eyes. The third eye in the forehead of the gargoyle was made from ruby instead of stone as the rest of the gargoyle was. It was still pitch black like midnight, but Toshi could see gray clouds swirling around the upper levels of the impressively tall tower.

"Friendly place," Toshi offered sarcastically, "Well, we had better check the place out. We need to find this woman so we can get whatever that stone is back."

As the three kept walking Toshi took into notice the fact that the landscape around the tower was seemed incredibly desolate. It was almost as if the whole area had been blasted by incredibly destructive energies but the tower had somehow remained intact. Well, not entirely intact. There were huge cracks along the structure of the tower and chunks of it had fallen off to rest like boulders on the ground near the entrance. The boulders from the tower absolutely littered the area; anyone who enjoyed guerilla tactics would love this place.

As the three kept walking Toshi accidentally stepped on a stick. The dry snapping sound scared some sort of small animal nearby that squeaked and ran to hide in the brittle skeleton of what was once a bush. Just as Toshi turned his head to look at the animal he heard a shout of feral rage and turned his head to see a man wearing stone armor and metal blades on his hands jump out from behind a boulder near the entrance of the tower and charge in his direction.

"Wha-?" Toshi gasped.

"You damn idiot! That wasn't the signal!" another voice from behind a different boulder yelled, "Shit! We have no choice now! Open fire!"

A whizzing sound went past Kleo's left ear. She turned around to see where the sound went and noticed that a serrated arrow had buried itself an inch deep in the dry dusty landscape nearby.

"I'll take this guy, you get the sniper!" Sierra commanded Toshi as she drew her Astral Vine enchanted scythe and ran to meet with the berserker.

"I hear you!" Toshi acknowledged as he threw a fireball up to the battlements. The sphere of flames illuminated the unnaturally dark atmosphere for a brief moment before it reached its target. Then it faded without an explosion.

"What the hell?" Toshi began pondering but was cut short by another serrated arrow that hit his right shoulder pad at just the right angle that it bounced off harmlessly instead of burrowing through the armor and into his shoulder. He threw another fireball with the same result. Another arrow whizzed by but this one missed him by at least a meter.

The berserker charged to meet with Sierra while screaming in blood-lusted rage.

"Come on, let's see what you can do," Sierra said while positioning her scythe to meet the berserker's charge with horizontal slice. As the berserker came closer Sierra swung her blade right in alignment with her opponent's ribs. To her surprise, the scythe blade did not cleave through the stone armor that the berserker was wearing; instead it seemed as though an invisible force was pushing her scythe away as it came into contact with the stone. The force was so violent that the Sierra couldn't keep her grip on the weapon and it flew out of her hands to land on the ground a few meters away.

The berserker swiped with both clawed hands at Sierra. The first claw hit Sierra's breastplate and while making a spine-chilling scratching noise, did no real harm. The second claw made contact with Sierra's cheek and would've done some serious damage if she hadn't attempted to evade. As it was, the claw only made four bloody streaks along Sierra's cheek, but with her excitement for battle building, she hardly noticed any pain. She clenched her fist and gave a powerful right hook to the foe's face.

The force of the blow coupled with Sierra's gauntlets knocked the berserker back a few paces allowing Sierra time to draw two dirks from her robes that she readied in each hand.

"Shit! What's going on?!" Toshi yelled as a variety of spells he used had proved to be useless against the sniping archer for some reason. Toshi took a moment to watch Sierra dueling with the berserker. Toshi stared at the berserker's stone armor and thought such a material to be odd for protection. Another arrow whizzed by but Toshi didn't notice it as he was too intrigued by the odd armor.

As Sierra and her opponent fought they dealt each other minor blows, the claws seemed to do little more than make faint scratches on Sierra's plate mail; however, as Toshi noticed, Sierra's dirks when making contact with the stone armor broke away pieces of the armor fairly easily.

Toshi gasped. "So that's it! Orihalcon!"

He turned to face Kleo who until now had been paralyzed with fear at the thought of battles and killing. "Kleo! They're wearing orihalcon armor! Sorcery won't work against them so I need you to take out the sniper with your gun."

"But. . .but. . .I-I can't. . ." she stammered, "Th-that means I would kill again. . ."

"Dammit, Kleo! We don't have time for you to be having a guilty conscience! If you don't kill that sniper he'll kill you!"

Kleo pulled her pistol out of the back pocket of her jean shorts. She looked down at the symbol of guilt and sin that rested in her hands, uncertain what to do.

"Do it, Kleo!"

"But. . .but. . ."

"Kleo. . .I know what you're thinking. I know how you feel. . .but right now is the time to put those emotions aside. You don't have a choice. Do it,"

Kleo aimed the pistol up at the battlements where she just barely could see the figure of the sniper a fair distance away. She fired but the bullet apparently didn't hit as evidenced by the sound of it ricocheting off of stone and the fact that the sniper countered with another arrow that hit Toshi.

"Toshi!" Kleo gasped as she ran over to him. He was kneeling on the ground attempting to fight back the pain as he pulled the arrow out of his left arm.

"I'm. . .I'm okay. . ." he said between clenched teeth. Toshi dropped the arrow on the ground and began casting a healing spell on his wound.

"I'll try to heal it," he told Kleo, "but I'm no priest. Look, right now what I need you to do is to take out that sniper, and fast!"

"I-I'll try. . ." Kleo said while taking aim at the battlements again. She fired and again the ricocheting sound informed her that her target was unaffected.

Kleo kept trying to shoot the sniper while occasionally stopping to load more metal bullets into her weapon. As she did this, Toshi noticed that a woman wearing white and green robes under orihalcon armor was running from one boulder to the next, trying to remain hidden but obviously trying to get near to Sierra and the berserker.

"This is the end!" Sierra told the berserker as she swiped the dirk in her right hand at his face. He raised his claws to block. That was a mistake. Sierra dropped the dirk in her right hand and grasped onto his hands holding them in place in front of his face. She then used the dirk in her left hand to stab at his exposed torso. Unable to parry, the berserker could only try to free his hands from Sierra's grasp as her dirk cut through the physically weak orihalcon and sank into his chest.

The berserker muttered some unintelligible profanity and dropped to his knees. Sierra kicked the body aside after withdrawing her weapon. She scanned around for any other enemies and decided to see how Toshi and Kleo were faring.

"One enemy down-" Sierra began announcing to them until she noticed the garish wound on Toshi's arm and the red stain it had caused in his sleeve.

"I'll be alright," Toshi assured her, "What I need you to do right now is to get inside that tower and get to whoever is behind all this. Kleo is dealing with the sniper and I'll take cover behind a boulder until I can heal myself."

"Alright, I'll go in. Just be careful you two, okay?" Sierra ran towards the giant door to the tower only stopping long enough to pick up her scythe where she had dropped it.

"Oh yeah! One more thing!" Toshi shouted to Sierra as she ran off, "They're wearing orihalcon armor. The orihalcon produces an anti-magic field and that's what caused your Astral Vine enchanted scythe to be repelled!"

"Alright!" Sierra shouted back in acknowledgement.

"Try to find cover," Kleo instructed Toshi, "I. . .I guess. . .I'll just keep trying. . ."

"Kleo, please. Don't feel bad about this. Killing in this situation shouldn't be a sin," Toshi responded but Kleo said nothing; only swallowed hard to hold back tears.

Toshi turned around to look for a suitable boulder to hide behind only to see that the berserker who had been slain by Sierra was standing up again and VERY pissed.

"What the hell?" he muttered to himself as the berserker charged in his direction. Toshi thought a moment while drawing his katana to defend himself. He remembered seeing the woman with white and green robes and suddenly realized.

"Shit! A priestess! They have a priestess!" Toshi shouted to Kleo as he parried a few slashes from the berserker and returned with a thrust from his katana that only made a small flesh wound against his opponent's shoulder.

But that doesn't make sense. How could the priestess's white sorcery affect the berserker if he's wearing orihalcon armor? Toshi pondered as he continued to duel with the berserker.

Kleo had seen the priestess. Being pretty sure that the sniper had been killed because no more arrows assaulted her, she decided that she need to find the priestess and remove the threat.

"Only once more. . .only one more. . ." she told herself while knowing what she must do to the priestess. The words seemed empty to her but it was the only thing she could tell her conscience about the fact that she must once again kill. She left Toshi and the berserker to duel while she tried to find where the priestess was hiding.

Kleo searched behind the large boulders in the area trying to discover from where the priestess was aiding the berserker with her magic. Kleo stopped suddenly when she heard a woman's voice.

"Dammit! I knew this shitty armor would get in the way!"

Kleo peeked around another boulder carefully do discover the priestess with her back to Kleo. Kleo checked the pistol to make sure she had at least one shot left; she couldn't miss this one.

The priestess fumbled around with the orihalcon armor she was wearing trying to get the much too large plate of stone to rest on her shoulders properly. Kleo suddenly had a thought. If for some reason white sorcery wasn't dispelled by this orihalcon, then maybe she could avoid killing the priestess.

The priestess finally got the armor set where she wanted it to and she looked around to check her surroundings, of course, she saw Kleo standing about three meters away.

"SLEEPING!" the priestess commanded while throwing a small white aura sphere at Kleo.

Before the spell hit, Kleo fired her pistol. "Rafahs Seed!" she commanded and the bullet exploded mere inches away from the priestess. Vines glowing with a blue aura emerged from the explosion and wrapped themselves around the priestess, tying her tighter than any rope could have. The priestess tripped due to the Rafahs Vines preventing her from moving her legs. She dropped to the ground, helpless and bound, at the same moment that Kleo dropped to the ground, snoozing softly.

"They've gotten past the first wave," the black priest informed the Greenhell leader as he walked up from behind her.

"I told you we shouldn't have waited by for them!" the leader shouted at him.

The black priest shrugged his shoulders. This way would be more fun for him.

"I'm going to inform m'lady," he said and walked towards the stairwell that lead up to the top of the tower.

The Greenhell leader turned back to the stairwell leading down to the entry hall. She knew that the enemy could be coming up from it any second now. She turned back to where the black priest had stood, about to say something. . .but the black priest was no longer there.

"Wha-?" she mumbled. There was no way that he could've climbed the incredibly high staircase so quickly.

"Oh, well. . ." she muttered while turning around again. . .only to discover the black priest standing an inch away from her face.

"Surprised?" the black priest asked the dumbfounded assassin, "I forgot to mention something. If the woman named Sierra comes by, just hold her at bay. Don't kill her until I'm back."

The incredibly confused assassin began stuttering a response and turned back to look at the staircase up to the top of the tower. Was she seeing things? How could the black priest be in front of her now? She turned back to the priest about to ask what was going on only to discover that he was gone.

The assassin slumped to the ground, feeling very confused and very defeated.

"What the freakin' hell. . .?"