Iridescent: Chapter Ten

Iridescent

Chapter Ten

~The Hunters~

After the Fall

Ai stood and watched the two siblings walk away. When they were out of her sight she turned and started walking in the other direction. She walked up a large hill and when she crested it she looked down in to the valley below. There was a clearing and in the center of the clearing was a fenced off facility. She walked down into the valley and walked up to the gate.

A man in his twenties stood against the gate on the outside. He used a lighter to light a cigarette. When he saw her he placed the lighter in his pocket and blew a stream of smoke out of his mouth. He wore a long black jacket over his sleeveless shirt and jeans. His black boots had seen better days as the dirt and mud clung to the soles. He had white hair like little Ai’s only his was much shorter. The hilt of a long claymore sword hung from his back.

“Where in the world have you been?” he asked as Ai walked up to him.

“I needed some air,” Ai stated.

He looked at her emotionless eyes, “You lying.”

Ai remained silent. She pushed open the gate and walked into the court yard of the facility. The man walked in after her and closed the gate behind him. Ai opened the large sliding door of the facility and walked in. There were dozens of empty shelves full of empty and half empty boxes of supplies. Several people lay around lazily a few in the back tried to break into a back room supposedly full of cases of Blue Gold.

“Where have you been?” the man asked.

“Oh, jeez, Dante,” a woman dressed in black and purple groaned in a corner, “Leave the kid alone! Doesn’t a girl her age deserve a little alone time?”

The woman sat up and glared at Dante. When she spoke she spoke in a British accent. Her black hair was tied into two ponytails. She wore black makeup including black lipstick. She was often seen chewing a black piece of liquorish gum. An enormous battle axe lay beside her.

Dante looked at her, “Aw, shut up Zathura! I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Wonder in if I chopped of you head would you still be such a smartass?” Zathura smiled.

“Come on you two,” a teenage boy called from the back, “We can’t have you at each other’s throats. No wonder Ai went off on her own.”

The boy turned around from the door he was trying to open. He had a friendlier face. His black medium length hair was up to his chin and covered the left side of his face in an attractive sweep. He was simple in his appearance, a sleeveless hoodie and cargo pants. Two symitar hung from his belt.

“Oh sod off, Ren!” Zathura said, “Just work on the bloody door!”

Ren shrugged and got back to work. The teen girl beside him motioned for Ai to come over.

“Come over here Ai!” the girl patted the box beside her, “Plenty of room over here!”

Ai started to walk over to the girl. She smiled goodheartedly. Her blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She wore the colors of a girl, pink and white with blue jean shorts. Near her person was a tattered guitar case.

“Not yet, Sanya,” Dante stated, “I still have to talk to our little princess. Come on, just answer the question.”

Ai answered without any emotion in her voice, “I was getting some actual work done.”

“Work?” Dante asked.

“At least she is getting something done,” a woman walked out of the shadows, “That’s more than what I can say for most of you.”

She wore dark purple pants and a white fitting sleeveless shirt with a high necked collar. Her black hair was short and easy to manage. She wore purple and white earrings. A double bladed glaive hung from her back. She looked at Dante in particular and walked off.

Dante narrowed his eyes, “And what’s that supposed to mean Yin?”

“Nothing?” Yin said, “Just that you haven’t made any progress on the job the man in the suit gave us. What is it going to take to for you to get started? I mean they stranded us on this god forsaken island!”

“Hey it was either do this job or live in that New Order society! I’d rather be here than there!” Dante stated.

“Either way, we’re starving,” Zathura stated.

Dante glared at her, “How was I supposed to know I’d be this way?”

Zathura stuck out her tongue.

“I found some of the people that we are supposed to be looking for,” Ai said.

Yin looked interested, “Is that so?”

Ai nodded, “A girl and a boy. The girl was named Amber hand had orange hair like in the picture the man gave us. The boy had white hair and looked younger than the other brothers in the pictures. His name was Chaud. They have a place nearby.”

“Well, look at our little detective,” Ren smiled.

“A detective and a little princess,” Sanya laughed, “How do you do it Ai? You never cease to amaze!”

“Woah, woah, woah!” Dante shook his head, “You better start at the beginning, little miss.”

“What? She talking too fast for ya?” Zathura blew a large black bubble.

“I met the girl in the forest. She was practicing her aim or something,” Ai continued, “We played a stupid game and she talked too much. From the start I thought I recognized her but I needed to make sure. I was about to bring her back to camp but her annoying brother came out of nowhere. I think he made me.”

“How’d he make an innocent girl like you?” Dante asked.

Ai was quiet as she though a moment, “I messed things up. I called him by his name.”

“That doesn’t sound horrible,” Sanya said.

“The girl never really told me his name,” Ai said.

“Perfect,” Dante dropped his cigarette and stepped on it, “Now they know something’s up.”

“Maybe,” Ai said, “Maybe not.”

“Well now how are we supposed to fix this?” Yin asked.

“You can start keeping your knickers on,” Zathura walked up, “I’m sure the great and powerful Dante can think up something.”

“Oh, we’re saved,” Yin rolled her eyes and walked away.

“Now, let me think a minute,” Dante said.

Zathura sighed, “You’re right, we’ll be here all day.”

Dante looked around, “Is there anyone else here that wants to jab at me? No? Great! Not let a master think. From what the guy said, the older brother will really be the brains behind their survival.”

“The girl did say that he was teaching her how to fight,” Ai volunteered the information.

Dante had a large smile on his face, “We’ll its easy my friends, we simply take out the brother.”

“The brother?” Sanya asked, “I thought we were only supposed to be capturing them?”

“We are,” Dante rubbed his forehead, “What I mean is that if we disable the brother somehow they will be completely defenseless. The girl doesn’t know how to fight, Ai said so herself, her brother was teaching her. She wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight with her brother unable to protect her.”

“Are you sure we could do it?” Yin asked.

Dante opened his arms and looked around, “Look around! There’s six of us against one of him! How hard could it possibly be!?”

Ren looked over his shoulder, “What if they aren’t just traveling just the two of them? The rest of the family could be with them as well and we could be walking in to something a lot more complicated than a brother protecting his younger sister, know what I mean?”

Zathura nodded, “Yeah, how do we know they are really traveling alone?”

“She specifically said that she was traveling with her brother, not her family,” Ai said.

Dante laughed, “I trust our little princess. If she says their alone, they probably are.”

“What’s the plan, Dante?” Yin asked, “How are we going to do this?”

Dante shrugged, “I say we see if we can find their camp. See if they are still there, you know? If not we’ll track ‘em. He can’t get very far with a defenseless sister to drag along.”

The door in the back sprung open. Ren dropped the crowbar he was using and slapped his hands together, “Don’t think he had a store of Blue Gold on him that could last him weeks.”

Dante smiled, “Don’t think he’s got that either.”