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Summary: Swamped with the invasion of enemy soldiers, Commander Jae, the first female ever inthe Raskwean army, has to find out a way to save her country. But Jae has a secret, a secret she'd die to keep hidden. And the one man she's afraid of, the one man she's terrified to feel for, wants to know what it is. Will he find out? Will she save Raskwe?
Yes, we are well aware of how awful that summary was. But the story is good, I promise.
Tera: Well, now that the formalities are done, on with the more interesting points of this author's note. One: My new slave driver dude is Mugen. He wishes he were my sex slave-grin- Everyone say hi to Mugen.
Mugen: Shut the hell up.
Tera: I do not own Mugen, the maker of Samurai Champloo does. I believe his name is Shinichiro Watanabe. Correct me if I am wrong.
Mugen: Get the hell on with it!
Tera: SHUT UP, I'M GETTING THERE! Anywayz. Since this is the first chapter, let me explain the concept. Most of the characters are modeled after someone, whether it be a character in a movie, book, manga, show, or one of my friends or an actor or something. Your job as reviewers (or as my friends who looove me) is to guess who it is! Yay! Anyone who guesses correctly gets a chapter dedicated to them. Polls for the characters are at the author's notes at the bottom. Now, what you've all been waiting for: ONWARD!
Chapter 1
“Climbing through slime was not in the job description,” Jae muttered under her breath, using her sword to slice through the thicker parts.
“Come on, wimps!” she hollered at her troops.
“Aye!” they all yelled back.
“I better get a big gold metal for this.” She scowled at the unnatural goo that was covering her path. “Ok, as soon as we get through this, I want two of you to make sure we can get back. That’ll be Franc and Ilit.” She spat the order through a mouthful of slime and continued her shove through.
“Aye,” both scouts hollered up to her.
“I still don’t understand why they let a woman command this vital mission,” hissed her second in command, Kale Cooper.
“Because I’m the best, lieutenant Cooper. And, as your commanding officer, you will address me by my title.” Kale Cooper was the only one she would force to call her Commander. He was every army’s stereotypical hothead that argued with everything unless it came directly from HQ.
“Whatever.” He tried to push ahead, but Jae caught his arm with the hilt of her sword.
“Lieutenant, I am in charge, therefor I will lead.” She thwacked viciously at some hanging ooze to prove her point.
“Yes, commander,” Cooper grumbled.
“Come on! Motivate yourselves!” she called.
The rest of the army liked Jae. Sure, she was a bit rough around the edges, but she cared for the people and always managed to get the job ahead done efficiently without much loss of life.
“Aye!”
“Yes! Freedom!” she whispered to herself as it started to get brighter. “I see light!” The troops cheered.
With newfound energy, Jae whipped out her backup sword and attacked the slime.
“Yes! Men, I’ve found the exit!” She collapsed on the ground and gulped down air before crawling out of the way so the other men could rush out. And collapse.
“Ok,” she panted. “You have two minutes to recuperate.”
During her two minutes, she managed to take the band out of her slimy black hair and shake both out. She put it back up as she stood. One thing she didn’t need was her hair getting in her way.
“Alright. Cooper, you take 15 men and position yourselves defensively around the palace. If a guard sees us, shoot him. Use the longbows. Every time you shoot someone, change position. Don’t do a rush attack, there are too many. I’ll take the remaining five men and get the princess out of the castle. As soon as you see us coming out with her majesty, everyone except the stealthers retreat. The two stealthers, come, retrieve the princess, and get her to safety. I want all of you to get through the slime as quickly as possible. Me and my team will somehow make it back. Cooper, if anything happens to me, I want you to take command. If you try and ambush me, I will have your badge taken away. Is everything clear?” She looked around at her men.
“Aye!”
“Good! I’ll take Murtag, Colnaghi, Polack, Jerome, and Nian. The rest of you, scatter and obey the lieutenant.”
“Aye, commander!” the chorused. Whoever had decided that the Raskwean army should say “aye” instead of anything intelligible was going to have a lot of explaining to do to Jae.
Cooper and his group disappeared swiftly into the trees.
“Come on. Slime is easy for them to detect, it may even have tracers. So everyone, take one of these.” She handed out a small capsule to each team member. After swallowing her own, she attempted to get some more goop off of her. After no luck, they slithered out of their tree cover.
Ducking and weaving, they managed to make it to the castle with only three enemy soldiers giving them any trouble. Those three soldiers would never give anyone trouble again.
As soon as they were inside, Jae turned around and hand signaled to her men to scatter off in pairs. If one of them found the princess, they would send a magic flare to the other teams. She partnered with Kev Nian, the best swordsman in the army, and they started up the grand staircase.
“Nian, any sign of the princess?” It was also rumored that he had exceptional ears.
“I don’t hear anything except the sentries.”
Jae nodded and they crept slowly along the stair case. A sentry at the top spotted them and attempted to blast them. He was dead a second later, a stiletto lodged in his throat. Jae yanked it out as they passed, cleaning it off and re-sheathing it.
“There’s the flare!” Nian whispered fiercely. Jae whipped around to find the red flare spiraling towards them. That wasn’t good. Red meant danger. Sure, they had found the princess. But they were having some difficulties.
“Which way was it coming from?” Jae scanned, looking for any sign of one of the teams.
“Came from the direction Murtag and Colnaghi took.” The two raced down the staircase as quietly as possible and nearly slammed into Polack.
“We can’t find Murtag, though they had lady Lida with them. I saw Candryan soldiers running off that way.”
“Well, you two follow them. Send an orange flare when you find them, purple if you don’t. Nian and I’ll guard your back.” They saluted and took off. “I knew it wouldn’t be easy,” Jae murmured under her breath, readying her stiletto and dirk.
When the orange flare came, so did three soldiers, running at top speed toward Nian and Jae. Backed together as more soldiers rushed them, Jae and Nian fought for their lives. A soldier came at Jae with a particularly nasty looking claymore just as a speech spell popped up by her left ear.
“We found them! Murtag’s got a deep cut on his shoulder and Lida’s unconscious,” came the voice of Polack.
“Good, get her out to the stealthers and then get out of here!” Jae commanded, switching to her native tongue rather than Raskwean. Polack got the message that they were under attack and also switched languages.
“Aye, commander!”
A magic burst came and shattered the spell, leaving Jae and Nian alone again and fighting for their lives.
“Nian! Can you hold them off for a minute?”
“I can try!” A head flew past Jae as she crouched down, leaving Nian completely open. She had faith in him, though.
Clasping her hands and pointing them towards the sky, she began chanting, weaving a death spell around the soldiers.
“Commander! Hurry!”
Jae chanted as quickly and quietly as possible.
The enemy soldiers caught on just as she was about to finish.
“Little wench!” One kicked her, causing her to lose concentration and thus breaking the spell.
“Vyerstadt!” she cursed and rammed her stiletto into his face. Blood squirted at her as she joined Nian in fighting.
“Commander! We have to fight towards the door!” Nian hollered.
“You’re right. Get moving! Left foot first!” They stepped rhythmically towards the huge palace doors.
All of a sudden, they noticed a path being cut towards them.
“I said to get out of here!” Jae yelled at Polack and Colnaghi who were closely followed by Jerome.
“We couldn’t abandon you! Come on, run for it!”
“I got your back, commander!” Nian shouted.
“Stop them!” The enemy order rang out.
“Watch out!” Jae screamed.
“Go! I’ll take care of these guys!” Nian urged her.
“No! I won’t leave any of my men behind!”
“We’re going to find lieutenant Cooper!” Polack hollered to her.
“You will not!” They had never heard the commander sound so fierce.
“Yessir!”
“Nian, on the count of three, we run for it. That’s both of us.” She had switched back to her native tongue and given the order loud enough for Polack, Colnaghi, and Jerome to hear it. They quickly cleared the way.
“One, two, three!” She and Nian bolted while Polack ran backwards firing arrows at the enemy.
“Get to cover! Come on!” They sprinted off to the trees, Jae bringing up the rear. When they made it to the slime, Jae created it behind her as best she could so they would have difficulty following them.
“Remind me to kiss Franc and Ilit,” she muttered to Nian.
“You can kiss me, too, for saving your neck,” he grunted.
“I will. Once we’re out of here and I’ve had a bath.”
Once they met up with the rest of the group, the slime was back in place and Princess Lida was complaining.
“I’m dirty and disgusting! I want to bathe!”
“Well, sugar, let’s put it this way. Would you rather be safe or clean?” Jae snapped.
“How dare you talk to me like that, you masculine woman!”
“Don’t tell me what to do because I am covered in blood and slime and have multiple knives on my body. If one accidentally finds its way to your throat, I can always blame it on the enemy.”
Lida looked offended, and huffed off to stand with Cooper who seemed to worship her ground.
“I liked her better unconscious,” Murtag whispered to Jae.
The black haired general looked up from his paperwork.
“Yes, Commander?”
“The mission was completed successfully.”
He smiled. “Good. Take a shower. I hear they finally fixed the heating spells.”
“I have official permission?”
“Yes, you do. Would you like me to write you a letter?”
“No, sir, just tell all the men not to open the door. Oh, and my report, almost forgot.”
“When you’re clean, you may report.”
“Yessir.” She left the room to find a much needed shower stall.
“Well, I’ve lasted this long as the first female officer. First female employee, really.”
“Hmph. It should have been my job,” he sneered.
“Have you come to complain? Because if you have, I have a report to give and you have a princess to take care of. So unless you have a good reason to be annoying me, I’m gonna leave.” And with that, Jae threw her towel over the shower stall and strode out.
“Nian!” she called as he walked down the hallway, still covered in muck.
“Commander!”
She walked over and kissed him on the cheek. “Pass that on to Franc and Ilit, would you?”
“You want me to kiss them?”
“Yes. And wish me luck. The general will probably have something to chew my ass out about.”
“Good luck.”
She continued down the hallway towards Aeolian’s office. General Phillip Aeolian was tough. Tough and cold, but utterly obsessed with women. He was the only man in the entire universe Jae was afraid of.
She finally made it to the oak doors of his study and knocked.
“Come in.”
She slowly opened it and stood to attention. “General.”
“Commander. Report.”
“Their mages were using slime to stall us. It was thick and hard to cut through, but it had air holes. We got the princess but we didn’t leave without a fight. One man on my team was wounded, three were wounded with the lieutenant. The soldiers know we have her.”
“Then they’ll be attacking soon. Are you prepared?”
“I think so, sir.”
“You think so?”
“Yessir.”
“What if they were to attack right now? Would you be ready?” he asked with a meaningful glance at her skirt.
“Not exactly, sir,” she stammered.
“‘Not exactly?’ But you would need to defend the princess. You must always be ready.”
“I’ll go change, sir,” she mumbled.
“That would be good. Come back when you can properly defend yourself and your country.”
“Yessir, will do, sir.” She scurried out of the room.
The mess of paperwork on his desk was calling to him when lieutenant Cooper walked in.
“Sir.”
“Lieutenant. I have already received the report on your mission. Your presence is not required.”
“Sir, if you’ll allow me to talk?”
“What is it, Lieutenant?” He sighed and looked up, resigning himself to his fate.
“It’s about the Commander.”
“Miss Jae? What about her?”
“She’s incompetent. She got the princess and four men wounded, sir.”
“Weren’t three of those men with you?”
“Well, er, yes, they were. But it was her tactic that got them hurt,” he stammered.
“Were there any fatalities?”
“No, sir.”
“Then there are no problems. You are dismissed.”
“Yessir.”
“Sir!” came the topic of discussion’s voice.
“Come in, Commander.”
Cooper glared at her as she brushed past him, now wearing dark green pants.
“I’m ready to fight, sir.”
“Good. I have a small assignment for you, then.”
“Yessir, anything, sir.”
“Help me with my paperwork. It’s killing me.”
Jae was taken aback, but smiled anyway.
“Yessir. May I have a seat, sir?”
“Yessir– ah, Commander.” He summoned a chair from the other side of the room and positioned it next to him. Jae took her seat, crossing her legs and looking at the stacks of papers.
“Do they all need signatures, sir?”
“Some do. Others are reports. You get to file those.”
“Yessir.” Yay. Jae was not going to like it if she was ever promoted to something higher than commander.
“And commander?”
“Yessir?”
“Stop calling me sir.”
“Yessir.”
Mugen: Yeah, yeah.
Tera: NO ONE ASKED YOU! Anyway, First poll starts now! Who is Commander Jae modeled after? Polls are open till I post the answer! You get one hint and it is: Jae is modeled after a character in a book.
Mugen: And review, g-ddammit.
Tera: He's almost more rude than Matt was (see "Heiress"). Oh well. McD, you were in this chapter. Can you guess who? Come on, guess!
Mugen: SHUT THE HELL UP, BITCH!
Tera: FUCK YOU! Anyway. Polls are up! Anyone who thinks they know Jae, guess away!
Mugen: REVIEW, BITCHES!
Tera: Have a great day!
