The Arctic Expedition

The cold air flowed harshly against the side of Fasha's flying castle. Finally, the large square-shaped object landed with a heavy thud. Hopefully, the internal mechanisms weren't damaged by the snow. Fasha the Phoenix Witch stepped out of the fortress wearing a thick dark fur coat that went down to her knees, leaving the rest of her legs and feet exposed.

"I f*cking hate the cold...." She muttered, shivering slightly with each step as a group of 30 men emerged from the castle behind her. Each wielding a wavelength rifle. In the distance, there seemed to be a thick misty fog that was disguising some formation from being spotted easilly against the snow. "That's it, there's a rock cave in that fog. Hey, Chloe, you ready? We should probably be prepared incase this goes REALLY badly."

Chloe also stepped out of the castle. She was wearing a very warm white jacket, ushanka (Russian cap), military boots, pair of gloves and also special trousers. She had a wavelength pistol hidden in her jacket's pocket. However she wasn't planning to use it.
Well, Chloe didn't like the cold, but at least she wasn't a phoenix witch like Fasha.

The witch walked over to Fasha and nodded. "I'm ready, Fasha." She said as she looked in the direction where the cave should be located. "Hm...So...What do you think, how many traps or guardians will be there?" The necromancer asked.

"Ok men, move forward!" Fasha announced, enthusiastically. "Make sure you gun down anything that moves!" At her command, the guys started to carefully advance, slowly leaving their line of sight. As soon as they were far enough away, the Witch finally turned back to Chloe to answear her question.

"I've actually tried this before, but the guardian's well.... It's a bit out of my league. It's an ice golem sort-of thing that resists a LOT of different weapons and seems to be able to split into clones. So there should probably be.... I don't know... three of him? Yeah, that sounds about right. Oh, and he'll use the liquid from the snow to heal himself. I tried chucking some bombs at him once and he just regenerated his wounds like it was nothing."

She thought for a minute. There was something else that she heard of that was a poem or something but she couldn't remember it. The Witch really didn't have that much time with the book she found this information in. "Also, there should be a trap of some kind on the Magic Tool itself, but I don't know what it'll do.... So it's probably for the best that I'm the first one to touch it. If it explodes or something, I can take the heat."

"So..We're sending them to death?" Chloe asked with a little sad tone. She didn't like sending the soldiers that trust her to death. Suddenly she felt a little scared. There were three ice golems that were really hard to defeat and she wasn't a good warrior.
She looked at the soldiers and suddenly sighed.
Damn..It'll be harder than I've expected. She thought to herself.
"A-And what after this? You know, after we reach our goal?" She asked as she looked into Fasha's eyes

"Uhh, well, yeah, I guess we're sending them to die...." Fasha mentioned, quickly thinking of how to keep this from sounding as bad. "But we can just pick up the bodies and revive them later. Most of these guys are criminals dealing with the drug trade and who knows what else. Right? So when they come back with missing memories we'll actually be helping them because they won't have to worry about crimelords or whatever. Maybe we could even keep them with us, if you want."

She looked down for a moment, going back through what she said. "Yeah, that sounds nice. They could be like our knights or something.... But with guns! And Jetpacks! Well, maybe not jetpacks, it'll be hard to make something like that work, but you get the idea."

Chloe smilled: "Oh yeah! That might be a good idea..No, no no...Your idea is just awesome! I really like it." She said.
That idea sounded really good for her. The best part of this was "They could be like our knights or something.... But with guns"

Suddenly 4 soldiers walked over to them. They had their special wavelenght sniper rifles and swords on their backs. They were wearing the same unforms.

The witch looked at the soldiers and smilled
"Oh..here they are! My elite bodyguards!"

Chloe's soldiers' uniforms:

And their weapons:

"Nice!" The Witch commented about Chloe's elite guards. Then, out in the distance, a thick shadow seemed to appear from behind the fog and shout a loud echoing roar. The guardian then seemed to sprout extra arms before splitting off a second and, finally, third body. As the hired men started to take things in, they all seemed to slowly take a collective step back in fear.

"What are you guys going?! I said to shoot as soon as it moved you worthless-" Fasha sighed, angerly glaring at the men they worked so hard to gain start to retreat. "Whatever, hey, Chloe, your men should help them out a little bit from a distance. I'm going to try and see if I can sneak on ahead." The Witch reached onto the back of her coat and undid a few buttons to make a large asymetrical hole in the back of it that her wings could stick out of. It was clear that she made the change to the jacket herself and that she wasn't exactly used to making adjustments like that. Then, she tried to fly off and go around the group.

Chloe smilled
"Okay people! Prepare your rifles!" The witch ordered as she pulled out her gun.
Every guard crouched on one knee and took the sniper rifle.
Chloe looked at the guardians. "They're strong...Everyone, aim at the first golem!" The witch ordered.
And her soldiers did. One of them aimed at the guardian's head, other three aimed at it's torso.
"Fire!" Chloe yelled.
The soldiers loaded the rifles with their soul wavelenght and finaly shot. Because they were using the sniper rifles, they could hurt the guardian really seriously.

Fasha managed to get around to the left of the guardian before laying down in the snow to hide. Her green eyes stared intently at the bring that brought her so much trouble. Suddenly, four high-powered wavelength blasts hit the main guardian, seeming to knock visable chunks off of his form even though it seemed to be a mere shadow on the fog. Fueled with renewed bravery, the hired men finally started focusing their blasts on the other two guardians, sending them falling backwards slowly before the guardians began to charge forward with renewed power.

"There you go. Now was that so hard?" Finally, the Witch flew forward as quickly and silently as she could. As she thought, the crystal guardians seemed to not care about her as they started attacking the men, launching giant spikes of ice forward to impail a few of the men. They never saw her enter the cave. She turned around for a moment, glancing back at the chaos. "Give them hell, Chloe......."

"Don't stay in the groups!" Chloe yelled to the hired men.
She hoped that the men will listen to her orders.
"Adrian, Mike, Chester, Nickolas...Stay away from the guardians but don't stop shoothing!" She said to her soldiers. They just nodded and kept shoothing the main guardian.

As Chloe expected, the hired men and her own soldiers were trying to avoid staying in bigger groups.
Everyone kept shoothing.
Chloe's soldiers were trying to kill the main guardian. Other men were tryng to kill other two.
However Chloe's soldiers had a lot better equipment.
Well, maybe the guardians were very powerfull, but they were attacked by..34..Em..Wait..Now 31..Or maybe 29? It was difficult to count them. But when another two died, Chloe aimed at the main guardian and also shot. Because she was a witch, her soul waveleght was probably a little stronger than the normal human's.

Fasha went further into the cave, wrapping herself in her wings as she went. It was just so freaking cold.... Why couldn't the Magic Tool have been in a volcano or some fire chamber that wouldn't effect her as much? Finally, she found her way to a stone pedistal with a bronze sphere on top of it. That had to be it! It definatly looked like the sketches St. Enid made in his book. But what was the trap? As the Witch examined the pedistal she quickly found a metal plate on the side of it with some words etched into it.

Quote :

The World Rewards The Brave

History Rewards The Determined

I Reward The Worthy

It seemed to be some form of riddle, but what did it mean. Fasha tried to think it over. "Well, you have to be brave to beat the guardian. And you need to be determined to keep fighting after it starts healing itself with the ice...." She mentioned to herself, figuring out the reasoning behind the challenge. Maybe the only trap was the guardian? No, that didn't sound quite right.... Maybe something would shut off once they beat the guardian, then?

The longer that she took the more at risk Chlow would be, though. As much as she didn't want to admit it, Fasha didn't want to see her necromancer friend die. "You know what, I came out here through the snow. I'm MORE than worthy enough!" And, without any more justification needed, Fasha grabbed the Magic Tool.

As soon as she tried to take it off of the pedistal, however, a loud sound echoed through the cave alongside a blast of intense light as a surge of pain shot through her body. She lost control of her limbs and fell over, hitting her head on the solid stone floor. As the life left her body, Fasha gave one last attempt to get up only to see a sizable hole drilled directly through her stomache.

Chloe's idea was working.  Because the men and the soldiers were still changing their position, the guardians had the problem with attacking them. However, some of the men died already.
Even Chloe was helping them kill the main guardian.
The guardians were heavily damaged,  however from time to time they tried to regenerate themselves, which was almost for nothing because nobody even thought of stopping fire.
Bud suddenly one of Chloe's soldier has been killed.  
Damn it... The witch thought. But she ran over to his corpse and took his sniper rifle.

Suddenly Chloe heard a loud sound that was coming from the cave. She began to worry about Fasha's life.
The witch aimed at the second guardian which was almost destroyed and loaded the gun with her soul wavelength.
And then she shot. "the bullet" went right through the golem's torso and made him explode
One of the golems has beem defeated.
However it's comrades used  it's broken parts to regenerate.

Suddenly, Fasha's body started glowing as a sudden fire-y burst shot out of her skin, burning off her coat! For a moment she glowed red as the wound closed before the process finally stopped. She slowly got up, rubbing her head slightly as her feathers formed into a long-sleeved red robe that covered her down to her shins.

"Damn, that felt good!" She mentioned, brushing herself off a little. As a Phoenix Witch, it was a natural ability to be reborn from death. Ever since she found out she could do it, Fasha had abused the power until, eventually, something went wrong durring the process that caused her to lose all her magic aside from partial transformations and, of course, the rebirth magic. Carefully, she walked back over to the stand and tried to position herself in the exact same spot she was in.

"Ok, so if it hit me in the stomache while I was standing here...." She started, expecting the blast to go off again. Finally, she took a step to the side and quickly grabbed the Magic Tool as quickly as she could! This time, for some reason, the trap didn't seem to trigger. Fasha stopped and took a good long look down at the Magic Tool. The Mark of Magus.... She must have cheated the trap somehow. Thank goodness she was born with magic... heck, thank goodness she was willing to try that a second time... wait a minute..........

History Rewards The Determined

"Wait wait wait....." Fasha muttered, trying to figure out the trap. "No, there's no way it's just as simple as trying to take the thing twice."

The World Rewards The Brave

I Reward The Worthy

A sly smile crossed her face. So you were suppost to try to take it, that sets off the trap, and you need to try again. She wasn't meant to dodge the trap, the Witch who goes after this Magic Tool just has to be brave enough to try, have some way to tank the hit, switch bodies, or be revived, and then have enough courage to try to take the Magic Tool again! "So I guess I am worthy after all. I just have to figure out how to use the stupid thing...."

After the main golem healed itself, it picked up a big block of ice.
"Wh-What the hell?" Chloe asked surprised when the guardian threw that block of ice towards the men..
The the witch saw that -probably by an accident- a few men found themselves to close to each other.
They tried to run away, but it was too late and five men were hit by the block of ice.
Then surprised and frightened witch noticed that there were only 15 people left, the rest of them died.
So two Chloe's soldiers and thirteen hired men and also the necromancer witch were still fighting against one regenerated main guardian and one heavily damaged weaker guardian.

"Ok, I've got this!" Fasha shot a blast of fire from the cave and struck the weakened guardian in the back. The intense sudden blase seemed to be very effective against the beast, melting a sizable hole through it. However, the wound didn't seem to slow him down at all. The thing didn't even seem to notice it had been hit! Thinking quickly, the Witch took a step back and shot another blast of flames at the weaker guardian's left leg, forcing it off balance.

Sprouting wings again, Fasha flew over to the top of the downed guardian. Now that she was close, she could tell that inside the ice making up the monster's body was several decomposing corpses. That expleined where the bodies of the people who were just directly killed by the Magic Tool's trap were.... Whatever, she didn't have time to worry about that now!

"I'll try and melt this thing until it can't move!" The Witch shouted. "Try and get as many bodies and souls into the Castle as possible, Chloe!" Even if she was too far away to make out what she was saying, at least Chloe would know she was alive. Then, Fasha's body started heating up and slowly lit on fire as she tried to melt straight through the center of the guardian.

Chloe sighed in relief when she saw that Fasha was alive.
At least she didn't left her alone with the problem.
However she knew that she had to take the corpses of the dead people and their souls into the castle
"Listen people! We have to take the souls and bodies of our friends into the castle! So! Pick up the soul and put it into it's owner's pocket! AND DON'T EVEN TRY TO EAT THOSE SOULS!" The necromancer yelled.
Soon the hired men and her soldiers began to take the corpses with the souls into the castle.
Chloe looked at Fasha and smiled.
So our adventure is not going to end here... She thought to herself.

As Fasha melted through the guardian, a horrible oder floated into the air. The filthy water growing more discolored as she went but stayed around her hands and feet. This was such a horrible idea! It was so disgusting and....

Suddenly, she glanced over and saw about three shadows in the distance closing in. They seemed to have inhuman features, almost like Kishin Eggs. But why the heck would there be.... Wait, trials, one guy dies, his friend either tries the trap himself or eats the soul, the Kishin Eggs are just left to scavenge around the arctic. Or maybe it's just a coincidence and they were drawn by all the men that were dying. Either way!

Fasha flew back to the castle as fast as she could, shaking her hands in disgust the entire flight. "Chloe! Get on the Castle!" She shouted. "We should probably get out of here, fast!"

Chloe looked at the shadows. They looked somehow dangerous.
"EVERYONE TO THE CASTLE!" The witch yelled as she began to run towards the castle.
Soon she turned into a raven to make herself faster.
As fast as they could, the men and Chloe reached the castle.
However they were going to leave a few dead bodies there which made Chloe feel sad.
As Chloe landed next to Fasha, she turned back into her human form.
"W-What the hell are they?" Chloe asked as she pointed at three shadows.

"Kishin Eggs. At least... I think they're Kishin Eggs.... I don't know, I think they're eating the souls of the people the guardian and the Magic Tool trap killed or something. And, based on how many bodies were in the guardian, I REALLY don't want to hang around to see what they can do!"

Fasha stared at the fog surrounding the cave as she waited for the figures to try and come after them. But they seemed to stay around the downed guardian. She couldn't help but wonder if this was another trap or if they just liked the horrible smell it was giving off. "How many guys did we manage to save? Well... guys and dead people...."

Chloe looked at the men and started counting.
After a while she sighed and looked at Fasha again.
"Fourteen alive..ten dead..The rest we have left on the battlefield..." Chloe said with sad tone.
She had to revive dead men, to turn them into Fasha's and hers "knights".
But what were they going ro do with twelve alive hired men? She didn't know.

As soon as the Witches got on the castle, Fasha slammed the door shut as it started to take off. She looked down at the Magic Tool in her hand, then over at all the bodies lined around the first floor of the castle as it all slowly dawned on her.

"I can't believe we did that.... We actually managed to get the Mark of Magus. We have in our posession the only known Magic Tool built specifically to help Witches. After all these years of searching, I've finally managed to track this thing down and get my magic back." The weight of the event was such a supprise that the Witch eventually just walked over and sat down in the corner. It was over, her goal was finally over! She couldn't even think straight for a moment and didn't even consider the guys who were alive.

Finally, she just lost it and slowly started to laugh to herself. "Oh my gosh, we actually did! Ha! Suck it, Vinnie, we NEVER have to worry about the DWMA or whatever the heck is out there ever again!" Fasha held the Mark of Magus up to her face, triumphantly. "You know what? That's not all! If this thing can grant magic to some normal people, then I bet, with enough time, I could supercharge it. Do you know what that means, Chlow? I think I could actually use this to make our existing magic stronger if we ever need a boost!"

A wide grin crossed her face as she started to think about the possibillities.

A smile appeared on Chloe's face.
Actually she always wanted to be able to resurrect more than one person in the same time.
Maybe thanks to this tool she will be able to do it.
Suddenly one of Chloe's soldiers took of his balaclava and walked over to her.
"Mistress Chloe? What are you planning to do with..You know...The rest of the group?"
The soldier asked.

Chloe looked at him.
"Adrian..Um..Okay...Let them rest..But you know what? I think..We should take them on a trip to Death Valley." She replied to him.
Actually only Fasha and Adrian could heard what Chloe said.
The soldier nodded and walked away.
Chloe looked at Fasha.
"So what now?" She asked her.

"Hmmm......." Fasha stopped and thought for a bit. "I really didn't think I'd ever get this far. But, now that we're here, we might want to take our time, look around, and see what else is going on. Right? Uhh... first thing's first, we need to figure out what to do with these guys. Then I guess there's plenty of Witches who'd be willing to join us and quite a few people who could use the powers of a Witch. So we could see if anyone's willing to pay for our services and see where things go."

She stopped and looked back down at the Mark of Magus. "Maybe we could see if we can find more things like this. I mean, Eibon's original Magic Tools worked together. Maybe St. Enid's could do something similar? They probably won't, but you have to be a bit curious about the other ones, right?" Honestly, she didn't even know where the others were or what they did. In fact, the only reason she knew about this one was from a book she found in another Witch's lair while they were away.

Chloe crossed her arms and thought for a while.
Indeed, they needed to do something with people who survived the fight.
"Well..I'm going to send these alive ones to Death Valley.." She said.
But then she sat next to Fasha
"And in Death Valley they'll be executed by my firing squad.." She she whispered to Fasha's ear with serious tone. She didn't know what else she could do with them. They knew too much, so Chloe and Fasha couldn't just let them go.

Two men took out phones to call their respective bosses. It was standerd stuff after every mission.