Fantasy Kind Of Story

Chapter 20: Surrounded

Lara, Silvio, and Jiro stood back to back as the raiders encroached on them slowly, grinning maliciously as they brandished their weapons.

"Y-you can t-t-take these guys right Jiro?", Silvio asked with a stutter, he was quivering in place, his ears pointed downwards and tail between his legs.

"Not this many, too many targets, bo-staff only has two ends", Jiro explained.

"Well this is just great! I've lost two of the three people im responsible for, the tavern was a bust, and now we are going to die!", Lara ranted on in frustration.

"Look at em, trying to find a way out, it's kinda cute dontcha think?", a female bandit said, nudging the cloaked man from earlier.

"Yeah boss, can we keep them? Just for a little bit!", A male bandit pleaded as if they were asking for a toy at a store.

"Sorry but the fellow paid a lot of money for us to follow his very specific instuctions which were to be quick and to simply cause a commotion, nothing more", the cloaked man stated.

"Alrighty then, since thats all settled we'll just be on our merry way!", Lara said as the three of them began to walk away, the bandits only closed in on them further.

"I'm sorry but we also cant let that happen, you see-wait a second, you look familiar?", the bandit leader began but stopped after he took a closer look at Lara, he began to rummage through his pockets and pulled out a folded piece or paper. He unfolded it to reveal a sketch of someones face, he held it up and scanned Lara and the picture.

"Well I'll be damned, this is your lucky day, you my dear are the one person we aren't allowed to hurt!", the bandit leader exclaimed jubilantly.

"What?", The three of them asked in unison.

The bandit leader approached Lara and showed her the sketch.

"This was given to me by the person who paid us to raid this village, he said that we weren't allowed to kill the person in this drawing", he said, waving the drawing infront of her.

"That could be anybody, whoever drew this was a total amateur", Lara replied cheekily.

"No, this is you alright, your THE girl", the man replied as he got closer to Lara, once he did Lara was able to get a good look at his face and saw that he had dark skin, long, messy black hair, and a scar on his right eye, and a mole on his chin, it was the man they were looking for!

"Yeah, and your OUR guy!", Lara exclaimed happily as her fear turned into glee.

"What?", the man asked, stunned and perplexed by her sudden shift in emotion.

"Your the guy who hired Kiburi and Marya to cause a distraction!", Lara exclaimed.

"Oh, those two, well since you know their names I'm guessing they were caught", the man said in realization.

"No thanks to you! But I helped them realize that you gave them fake coins and now they're on our side!", Lara said triumphantly.

"Really, and where, pray tell, might they be?", The bandit leader asked, looking around to see if they were hiding.

"They, uhm, they left...", Lara said as her pride washed away and melted into shame.

"They dont sound like very good teammates to me?", the man said patronizingly.

"Well we dont need them, I could kick your ass all by myself!", Lara said, attempting to push through the fear and appear tough, but only succeeding in making the bandits chuckle. The bandit leader got even closer, standing directly infront of her.

"Remember when I said I wasn't allowed to kill you? Well, I am allowed to hurt you, especially since one of the things I was paid to do is take you in alive", the bandit leader said as he unsheathed two large daggers.

"Your friends however will not be receiving the same special special treatment", he said grimly.

"I dont know who you think you are but you are not laying a hand on me or my friends!", Lara shouted, pointing her mace at him.

"You can call me Klaus, and I'm the guy who runs just about every less than legal activity that goes on in Felsen, with that being said, get em boys!", Klaus announced arrogantly as he sicked the army of bandits on them, the three of them squished together as much as they, but they were cornered up against a wall.

Suddenly a barrel crashed down into one of the goons and knocked them to the ground, everybody stopped and turned to see Kiburi standing next to a cart full of barrels.

"There's more where that came from!", Kiburi shouted as he started launching more  at them, causing the bandits to begin frantically running around to find cover.

"Over here!", A voice came from the corner, it was Marya, the three of them took the opportunity and followed Marya into an alley.

"You guys came back!", Lara said happily.

"Wasn't my idea, I was going to leave you here to die, but the big guy came back", Marya explained as they navigated their way through the alleyways.

They were almost home free when Klaus appeared infront of them, they halted and were about to run the other way but were blocked by three bandits.

"Your not off the hook yet, this guy who hired us, he is offering a lot more than just coin for this job", Klaus said as he slowly stepped towards them, rubbing his daggers together to create a sharp noise.

"Like what, dental?", Silvio said nerviously.

"Thats none of your business", Klaus snapped back.

"It is when your trying to kidnap us!", Silvio yelled back.

"I only want to kidnap Lara, the rest of you aren't worth my time, so I'll let my guys and gals decide what to do with you", Klaus said condescendingly.

"Then you'll have to get through us!", Marya yelled as she pulled out her daggers and readied herself, Jiro and Silvio followed suit.

"Dont threaten me with a good time", he said as a smile formed on his face, he began to slowly walk forwards.

Marya went out first, charging forwards and jumping upwards with her blades pointed downwards towards Klaus, Klaus took a quick step to the left and sliced Marya's leg as she flew by, falling to the ground and grabbing her leg in pain.

"Too obvious", Klaus said.

Jiro went next, he attempted to perform an uppercut swipe with his staff, but Klaus turned sideways to dodge it, Jiro saw this and responded with a quick kick to Klaus's gut.

"Nice shot", Klaus said, shaking his head in approval, Klaus proceeded to knock Jiro over by kicking his other leg holding him up in the knee, Jiro fell to his knees, Klaus kicked him in the chest hard enough to knock him into the wall.

"But next time down make it so easy to lose your balance", Klaus said as he turned to look at Silvio and Lara, who were acting as brave as they could.

Silvio took out his wand and shot a burst of green energy at Klaus, Klaus took a handful of something and tossed it into the air, it was a white dust that shimmered in the light, when the magical burst hit the cloud of glimmering dust the burst of energy was stopped by the particles and pushed back at Silvio, which knocked him over onto the ground behind Lara.

"Crystals crushed into a fine powder, perfect for stopping pesky magic users like your friend, reflects all the energy and pushes it back at them", Klaus explained.

"I didn't ask for a magic lesson!", Lara said furiously.

Klaus was about to grab Lara when a barrel slammed into his head, knocking him out instantly.

"Knew keeping one would come in handy!", Kiburi said triumphantly.