Baele had the distinct feeling that she was lost. It wasn’t pleasant. She had successfully been tracking the group until she had tripped over one of the stalagmites protruding from the floor.
"I guess I took a wrong turn," Afterwards, she had just continued wandering, since she couldn’t retrace her steps. Not feeling up for a fight, she had just snuck past any Weavers she had seen, avoiding detection... until then. As she rounded a bend she was startled by an equally startled Weaver.
Tyric turned a bend and was surprised by what he saw-- Baele. He was about to confront her before he noticed the Weaver and also because Hopp yanked him back.
"What are you doing?!" Hopp demanded.
Tyric, however, didn’t answer the question and instead said, "Is that a Weaver?" Hopp took a closer look and saw that the spider had the Weaver characteristics, but instead of a regular brown or black hairy abdomen, it was covered by bands of hair that were red in color. She was about to reply when both of them grimaced, Tyric falling from a surge of energy from nearby.
Tyric opened his eyes and saw Baele standing close to the Weaver variant and touch an amulet around her neck saying, "X Prism Power!" and transform.
(Writer: Baele) The light was blinding. Tyric closed his eyes.
"What is that?!" Hopp screamed. Suddenly, the light disappeared and in Baele’s place stood Sailor X. The beast near her was momentarily stunned by the intensity of the light. Tyric opened his eyes again and gasped. "You’re... you’re the one who saved us before!"
"Baele?" Hopp said, surprised. "That was you?"
Sailor X turned and swiftly ran to them. "Ok, I confess, I wasn’t just lost in the woods. I was actually checking out the situation with the Weavers." She looked back at the Weaver, who had recovered and was advancing on them. "More details later, right now, let’s kill this thing."
"Right," Hopp said, raising her staff. (Writer: Tyric) It glowed red and caused a line of flame to erupt and block the Weaver’s progress. Surprisingly enough, it stopped, unlike its brethen earlier who had stupidly charged through. Tyric, back on his feet now, muttered and caused patches of ice to form at the legs, preventing it from moving.
"Sailor X, finish it off, I don’t have too much energy left."
She nodded and made an expansive waving motion with her hand, gathering dark mist as it moved. A moment before her hand swung and released the gathered energy, the Weaver spoke.
"Stop!" the spider said. Baele, caught off guard, released the energy off target, causing it to slam into the wall behind the Weaver and explode.
"What?! You can speak?!" Hopp said.
The spider did a threatening imitation of a grin, or what seemed like one. "Not all of us, only the Queen’s guardians, which I am part of."
"What Queen?" Tyric asked.
"Our ruler, you fool! Unfortunately I don’t think any of you will ever find out!" At this, the Guardian’s fiery bands began to glow and melted the ice at its feet instantly. It leapt and hit Tyric, causing him to forcefully hit a wall and collapse.
Hopp was incensed at this, and channeled that anger into an intense, hungry flame which hit the Guardian, burning it to ash in seconds. Hopp let out a small cry and rushed to Tyric, where Baele was already standing over him.
"He doesn’t look too good," Baele said. She had transformed back into regular form.
Hopp sighed and placed her hand on his head, then sent out a spark to see how badly he was off. "Well, nothing’s broken thankfully, but he got cut a few times and the force of the impact must have knocked him out."
Baele let a sigh of relief and said, "We’d better rejoin the others." She picked up the unconscious mage with a grunt and proceeded down the passageway.
Hopp and Baele soon met with the others. Bolt took a look at Baele and said "What is she doing here?"
Silverleaf had a little quicker thought process and said, "Sailor X, right?" Baele nodded, and Bolt’s mouth formed an "o".
(Writer: Bolt) "So," Hopp said, "will you join us? Your powers are obviously formidable."
Baele nodded. "For now. There’s more to these Weavers than it appears." The group then launched into a short discussion of the discovery of the Queen and started to work on a spell for the Queen’s location. Tyric by then had awakened with a groan and offered to help, to which he was met by a resounding "No.".
Baele signaled a stop. The group had been trekking down tunnels for a while now, with minor skirmishes and no sign of other Guardians along the way. The tunnels were increasingly getting filled with more webbing and debris, until they reached a passage that was filled with intricate designs of web and bone. The Queen’s court was definitely ahead.
"In the next cavern is our goal," Baele said. "All of you should know that the queen is, or at least was, human."
Silverleaf narrowed his eyes. "I’m not sure I follow."
"Apperently the Empire of Deras is growing more ambitious. Right now the main part of it is Juristein, its capital city --"
"Juristein!" Bolt cried. "I’m from around that area!"
Baele smirked. "I can’t say I recommend going back. The Empire is up to some pretty strange meddlings. The Queen was part of an experiment several years ago to create an elite fighting force... records of them were kept in Juristein, but nothing had been heard from them of late. It seems they have been honing their hunting skills."
"But Juristein... The Empire.." Bolt said. "It’s so far away. Why these woods?"
"Hard to trace, not to mention the fact that it’s No Man’s Land. If you hadn’t heard it from me, would you have traced this monster to a Jurist faction?"
Bolt shook his head. The others agreed.
"Now that you all know the truth," Baele said, giving a wolfish grin, "It’s time to make it history."
