A Broken Future (Book One)

Chapter 4 A Meeting like no other

"Pam Azura I want you both on the bike, ride around until it's time for us to leave, I feel like this whole town is gonna get hot after we are done." They salute and ride off as Astrid pulls Sasha close.
"W-woah Astrid!?" She looks up at Astrid and blushes hard as Astrid holds her waist.
"What I need to give you is your coat so you can blend in dummy" She puts the coat over Sasha's head and takes her hand giving her a kunai along with a pouch of them.

"There you go you have to protect yourself whenever I'm not around, and I'm sure these bad boys will help you out, I can't wait to see your surprise when you throw one." Astrid backs up as Sasha tries to stop her own blushing desperately.
"Okay Astrid im ready to go"
"Great now let's not dally!" She leaps onto a rooftop as Sasha is left by herself.
"U-uhm Astrid!"

"?...oh right, oh boy" She and Sasha walk normally through the busy streets of Ashvale, the bustling metropolis filled with both wizardry and tech that neither of them had experienced fully as even Astrid was caught staring at a robot or two.
"Wow, Pam's descriptions of this place don't even match" She pulls out her notepad and writes as they end up sightseeing through the town, when Sasha sees something fall outside a shop she gets her attention caught immediately.
"Hey Astrid im gonna go look this way"
"Alright don't get lost Meet me at the top level in 30 minutes" she pushes forward.

"30 minutes?... I can't even tell time yet" She sneaks over and finds the shiny crystal sharp too as she pokes it.
"What even is this thing?"
"Oh, that's a mana crystal" The shop owner opens the back door and startles the poor blonde as she drops the crystal.
"S-sorry I'll leave!"
"No no, you're fine pick that up, keep it if you want." The older man tries to not frighten Sasha as she grabs the diamond-shaped crystal.
"So uhm what is this thing?"
"You don't know? It's a mana crystal sweetheart, it can store mana inside it it's quite the powerful thing."
"Mana huh? Could you put mana in?"
"It's possible but you would have to be a scholar to do that" Sasha sits down and examines the crystal before pulling out a kunai as she gets an idea.

Astrid makes her way to the top levels of Ashvale where the true wealthy live, she gets onto a rooftop she looks around for Soma when she sees the governor get ejected from his position. CRASH!
rather forcefully...
"Okay, then I think I found her." She leaps over and walks over to the governor's office and leans against the doorway staring at the uniter for the first time.

"Dammit look at what you made me do now you bastard if only you would have just listened..." she turns as Astrid ducks behind the wall.
"(Shit...did she see me? No I think I did-)" Suddenly she sees a vision of the wall she was standing by getting blasted by black flames, Astrid instinctively dodges just as her vision predicted the wall explodes and Soma steps out.

"Another would be assassin huh? Alright then let's see if you have what it takes to kill the uniter!" Soma pulls out a flaming blade and dashes at Astrid.
"H-how did I dodge that?" She lands and quickly picks herself up grabbing her sword and clashing with Soma as the two trade blows it is clear that Soma has the advantage here as she disarms and kicks Astrid back.

"You can certainly wield a sword bounty hunter, but it will take more than that to kill me." She snaps as a group of spirit archers appear and fire at Astrid.
"Diva!" Her body glows as she slams her hand down changing the gravity as the arrows float up becoming useless, Astrid then sits up swapping to her knives.
"Umi you up!" She throws ten daggers to her sides as they suddenly lock onto soma and launch at her the uniter easily blocks the daggers before dashing at Astrid.

"Not so fast!" She uses Azura's power and blasts Soma as she jumps back but before the smoke clears Soma grabs Astrid by the throat and slams her onto the ground.
"That's enough from you!" Astrid struggles against Soma's grip before kicking Soma back and quickly punching Soma in the face.
The uniter growls at Astrid before suddenly a massive armored fist appears and punches Astrid into the air as Soma fires a ball of flame at the mercenary.
"Shit! plan b!" She looks around desperately before finding a light pole she uses one of her path's abilities and swaps places with it falling down a level and crashing onto a rooftop as she loses consciousness an explosion rings out above her.

Sasha was busy talking to the shopkeeper as she welded the crystal to her kunai pack.
"If magic can flow inside these things maybe I could use it to connect two points together right?"
"Im sorry sweetheart but you lost me there at the wormholes"
"Oh! Sorry, I read through some of the books here it says that people used to use portals to travel to different realms. so I was thinking about making a mini-sized one for my kunai"
"Well something like that takes a lot of skill to create are you sure it will work?" Sasha walks over and sees a dart board but before she can throw it she hears an explosion as they head outside they see fighting on the top levels of the city.
"Only one way to find out now!" She throws a kunai and it perfectly lands and plants itself firmly as she reaches out and her eyes change to a red color before she teleports to it.

"It...it worked holy crap!" She celebrates a bit too hard as she pulls out the kunai and nearly falls before planting it back in as another explosion rings out and Sasha sees Astrid hit a nearby roof.
"Astrid! Im coming!" She uses her new technique and makes it just barely to Astrid checking her pulse seeing that she is alive she sighs and hugs Astrid as she hears soma above taunt her.
"Ahh the assassin isn't alone huh makes sense I guess I now have two people to make an example of!"
Soma leaps down to finish the job as her spirit armor leaps down with her the massive armored spirit Oni and an intimidating sight to all except Sasha no matter what she had one goal and one goal alone.

"I don't care what you are I won't let you hurt my Astrid!"

End of Chapter 4