Chapter 2

And now here's chapter two! Hope you guys are already into the plot.
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       Ara immediately took off towards the borderline. The signal had made it clear that they were under attack. Add wasn't far behind her along with Dynamo who seemed to be already analyzing the situation. Ara suddenly stopped though. "Add, what are you doing? You're supposed to go back home. Only trained warriors are supposed to head out to the front lines," Ara said, stopping him. "I can handle myself. I need to know what's going on too," Add said.

       "Why do you always do this? You know the rules. You and your mother are considered some of the wisest citizens of this village by our chieftain. If he finds out that I let you come to the front line during a crisis, I'll be..." Ara was saying but she was cut off. "Ara, what are you doing? This no time for chatting, we need you at the village border!" Ryu Jin said as he briefly stopped to speak to Ara and proceeded to continue on to the border.

       Ara huffed in frustration. "Don't follow me," she said before turning away from him and running off. She glanced behind her just to make sure that Add didn't follow after her and to her relief, he didn't and had turned back around slowly walking as everyone around him rushed to get to their destination. Ara quickly scaled the side of a shop and ran across its roof. She leaped from rooftop to rooftop until she got to the last building near the village border.

       Once there, she jumped down and joined the other warriors of the Haan family along with the members of the Zhen and Shiu families. Everyone took their own spots in the already forming line of defense. Some had weapons, others did not, but the threat had been so urgent that it didn't matter. Ara could certainly fight without a weapon in desperate situations such as this one. The chieftain himself was there as well which meant that whatever was happening was pretty serious.

       "There are enemies of unknown origin waiting for us in our own bamboo barrier. A scout has confirmed that the light el fragment that had been powering our protective barrier has been stolen by the enemies that await us. We do not know what they are planning to do with it be we do know that they are trying to draw us out of the village. We have no choice but to confront them since they have the light el fragment in their possession."

       "Take your teams and stay in formation. Once the fragment is retrieved, the team that acquires it must put it back in its place to secure our borders once more. We cannot stop until this is done," the chieftain instructed and just like that, they were dismissed. Ara was grouped with Ryu Jin Haan, her brother Aren, and Master Mei Shin. They immediately met up and headed off with the other groups that automatically knew that they were to be sent out of the village.

        Ara had practiced for situations like this but had never had the need to follow through on the commands in a real situation. Master Mei Shin led them through the bamboo and the four of them continued on for a good few minutes before Mei Shin suddenly stopped. She gave the silent signal for them to split up and go around the enemy. They were to perform an ambush on whatever was in their way.

       Ara carefully made her way around, going left with Aren while Ryu Jin and Mei Shin went right. They were careful to stay as quiet as possible as they stepped through the tall bamboo. Aren stopped and looked towards the direction that their enemy should have been but he did not commence the attack as they were trained to do. He just stayed still, frozen by something that he'd seen. He looked back at her and gave her the signal to stay put. She gave a slight nod and watched him peek through the bamboo.

       From far off, a sudden cry of anguish could be heard and several more followed it, their sounds less distant with each one. Aren suddenly pulled Ara to him which Ara was immediately grateful for. A beam of some sort barely missed her, leaving behind a path of clean cut and burned bamboo. The broken shoots of it fell to the ground, starting the series of noise that immediately followed. More beams could be seen further behind Aren and sounds of battle echoed throughout the small forest barrier.

       Ara panicked. This was much worse than any situation that she could have prepared for. Aren took Ara's hand an immediately began pulling her through the bamboo forest heading back towards he village. "Aren, no, we have to complete the mission!" Ara suddenly found herself hissing as she pulled her hand away from him. "We can't. We don't know what those things are. We can't fight them!" Aren said.

        Ara then lost any courage that she had left in her for she had seen fear in the eyes of her brother who she'd never seen fear anything or anyone. Suddenly, a creature, one that Ara couldn't quite describe, charged through towards them. Neither of them could fully see it but the quick, loud sound of snapping bamboo let them know that it was definitely trying to harm them. Ara didn't hesitate to run with her brother this time but they didn't get far.

        A beam much like the one from ealier shot across their path causing them to stop in their tracks. "That way," Aren quickly said as he turned direction but Ara couldn't follow him. She was suddenly snatched by a creature similar to the one that had been chasing after them. "Aren!!" she yelped in panic as she tried to fight the thing's grip but it did not let her go. Ara saw her brother turn around, they locked gazes for just a moment, right before the beam came.

       He dropped right in front of her, unmoving. Ara faught the creature's grip even harder as she tried to get to her fallen brother but she could not get free. She continued to call Aren's name but he didn't respond. Ara heard her name being called and shortly after she had been freed from the now dead creature. Ryu Jin had been the one to take it out with a broken bamboo shoot that he'd turned into a weapon. Ara didn't hesitate to go to her brother.

      "Aren get up! We have to get out of here, get up!" Ara pleaded but of course she got no response. Ryu Jin pulled Ara away from him though. "Ara, snap out of it! He's gone. We need to get you out of here," he said. Ara couldn't just leave though and so she could only sit there crying. Ryu Jin wasn't about to let her do that though. He picked Ara up and began to carry her back to the village.

       "Ara, I need you to calm down. I know that your dealing with a major loss right now but I need your help. I can't get back to the village unscathed without it," Ryu Jin said to her as he hid among a patch of bamboo that was still left standing. Ara was still crying but she understood very well what she had to do. These things, whatever thay were, could easily get into the village especially now that the bamboo forest was being destroyed.

       "I can help you now," Ara said, her voice barely audible but strong nevertheless. Ryu Jin put her down and began to lead the way but Ara did not follow him. Instead, she took a few steps back, ran forward, and used Ryu Jin's crouched figure as a boost to leap above the bamboo. She began to airwalk across the bamboo high in the air which gave her the advantage of seeing the a majority of the battlefield but she wished that she hadn't.

       The bodies of her comrades and some of her family members littered the area as well as some of those she did not know, and the creatures responsible for it were carelessly attacking. Ara suddenly felt sick but she continued on, knowing that she had no choice. These things could not get into the village or else there would be no village. Ara could see the things responsible for shooting those deadly beams through the forest of her home as well.

      They were charging energy and Ara realized that they were all aiming for her. Was she really the only one left to face them all? Ara did her best not to panic and watched them closely. She didn't know when they'd attack so she acted quickly and used her extra jumping ability to end her airwalk and land near a spear that she'd spotted near a fallen warrior. Ara took hold of the spear and immediately lay flat on the ground, pretending to be dead.

       She kept her eyes open to watch the creatures and to her surprise, they stopped charging their rays of death. Ara had expected them to fire anyway and she could wait for them to charge again. She figured out that she could dodge the beams since the others who were sprawled everywhere were only hit once and not repetitively. Them beams only had a certain range. Once Ara realized that the cratures were not going to charge, she leaped up and charged forwards with her spear.

      When she was airwalking earlier, she hadn't spotted the fragment so all Ara did now was take down the creatures. She showed no mercy as she attacked with the spear that she borrowed. All three of the creatures were taken out. Ara could see that they were stationed in one spot so that meant that their forces were scattered. Ara didn't know where to start looking but she wasn't about to give up.

       She kept going past what was left of the village borders, having to attack enemies along the way until she came across a single creature that seemed to be controling them all. It was much larger than the rest and surely sensed her coming. Not far from it was the light el fragment that gave the barrier its power. It was heavily guarded by more of the disturbing creatures that had killed off most of the warriors in her village. "I have to save the rest of them. I must finish the mission," Ara whispered to herself. She prepared her route and once she found it, she dashed forward.
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And so another chapter has made its way here. I wonder what might happen now. Until mext time you marvelous readers!

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