Daniel is going full speed, he can't believe he was too late to meet them. At this point he sure hopes that they did go meet the Zoreym group as he doesn't want to waste more time. His horse is too tired, and he has to take a rest soon, it's not going how he wanted.
This is his one and only chance to see them, and if they aren't there. He would have zero lead on where they could be, and he might never find them ever. One thing he knows is that they might never go back to Iriage, it's too dangerous for them to return.
The whole world is big, and every district is a whole misters on its own. Even if they did stay in Ethneal's territory it would take him months to check out every town and village.
He tries to think of places they could of gone to, maybe they did go to that one town. Maybe they are resting there for a while, but he can't read their minds, it's all a guess from here on out.
As he continues to travel as fast as he could, he spots a few men in big coats. This could an opportunity to ask for more information so he slows down. Even if they didn't he would apologize to them, and leave immediately.
He finally slows down enough. "Hey I hope this isn't much to ask, but did any of you people see this man?" Daniel asks them as he pulls out the newspaper ,and points at Lucas's face. Maybe it was because he was desperate or tired, but he didn't notice their faces.
They look very familiar, and it's too late to back down now. This was a big mistake that he should of never done, he has always had sharp eyes, but now he is less confident about that claim. He recognizes one of the men as part of the Iron Deadlock, and he assumes the rest are as well.
Daniel begins to sweat at the sight of them, why now did his eyesight betray him? He is about run away but. "Don't you move an inch you fucker!" One of them says as they all pull out their guns, and point them at him. He can see them clearly, and they all look tired and angry, this isn't good for him.
Daniel ignores them. "Go Dusty!" They begin to run away, but he doesn't make it far. One of the men shots at his horse, and they both fall to the ground. Daniel hits his head hard on the floor, and almost passes out. Daniel begins to bleed from his head, and he feels dizzy.
"We initially came here to get that girl's friend as we could pry some information. Honestly this might be as great of a find if not better." Said one of them as they begin to tie Daniel up, he can't do anything as he feels terrible.
"We can negotiate with the Lurkers with you, how lucky are we." Said another as they placed him on a horse, "Sorry about your horse, but it's no hard feelings."
—-
"I trust that you have my back Lucas." Ashly then looks around at the other men. "Don't hesitate alright, my life is on your hands. You care about me so I know you will shot them, you are different than me, and it's a good things."
Ashly then cracks her knuckles. "You won't hesitate if it means you are going to save me, you really do care for me." Ashly turns to look at Lucas who seems a bit uncomfortable, she knows he is trying his best for her.
"Sorry." Ashly quickly apologizes to Lucas for making him do this for her. At that moment she then thinks about how she is forcing Lucas to do something he isn't comfortable with. She is making him do this because she wants it, and most likely he is scared.
"Hey, why are you looking away all of the sudden? You were just serious earlier. Are you having second thoughts, and you realized this was pointless?" The Zoryem with a few missing teeth said mocking her.
Ashly turns back and she looks more angry. "Maybe she is scared, and she is most likely just acting. She is pretending to be tough, but she must truly be a coward inside." One of them says, and the others begins to chuckle. "I know a woman could never be this brave."
Ashly decides to do nothing because if she did she would cause Lucas to kill someone. Ashly then thinks that she is acting short tempered, and this is why she is causing trouble. She should just say she is scared, and move on, humiliation is better than giving Lucas a hard time.
"Ashly, why aren't you doing anything, why are you standing still?" Lucas says and Ashly looks back at him, Lucas then begins to think that maybe she is checking them out. Maybe she is trying to figure out how they fight before she faces him on. She is most likely trying to find a way to make a move.
Ashly can see that he is sweating a bit, but he is putting on a brave face for her. "Lucas just lower the gun already, don't do this if you don't feel comfortable. It's alright if you don't, I won't blame you as I can see you." She says, but she knows he wants to help her, this is not the time to fight with him. Whatever he does next she won't stop him from doing, it's his decision.
Ashly sighs a bit. "Can we have a little talk beforehand?" Ashly asks, and they agree with her, they are bored after all. "Why are you all insisted that I won't do anything?"
"Well it's because whenever we do something that may or may not be legal, it's the woman who always cries first. Our leader raised us with some values of his, and we are honoring them." Said the tall Zoryem.
"That's no excuse, and I've been told that you all took it to the extreme. You all need to understand that the truth is different than what you dreamed and hoped for." Lucas says as Ashly can feel a sly glance at her, she knows what he is talking about, but he isn't blaming her.
"I will fight the man who decided to challenge me, I won't hold back. When I beat him you will all have to accept the fact that I'm as capable as anyone if not better!" Ashly yells out as she points at the Zoreym who cahllenged her. "I'm itching to see your crying face already you bastard."
"Sure whatever you say, I think we can accept that." The Zoreym with missing teeth says, he begins to approach Ashly. "I'll close my eyes for you so that we can be more even sweetheart. If not why don't I also only fight you with one arm? I don't want to kill you." He says with a wide grin.
"Go ahead it will only make me kicking your ass much faster." Ashly says with confidence as she gets into a fighting stance, and the man chuckles. He also gets into one, but his is more stiff and uneven as if he ain't even taking that serious.
The man the runs at Ahsly, and throws a jab which she dodges it. Ashly then quickly jabs his jaw which makes the man backs off. She isn't as weak as he thought, but it was a lucky shot. He was going easy on her, and if he wasn't he would of already broken her face.
He then throws another punch which Ashly blocks, and she retaliates. Ashly purposely misses her jab, but she puts speed into it. She is fast, but she can't win is what he thinks as he throws another jab at Ashly. This time it hits her, but to his surprise, she doesn't budge.
Ashly smiles and before he could move backwards Ashly gives him a nasty jab. He backs away, and he can feel his nose is bleeding. "Come on man don't let her win, knock her out in one punch!" The others yell out.
Ashly checks her hand which has his blood. "Will this make you take me serious now?" She asks and this angers him as he feints a punch. Ashly anticipates it, and she kicks the man in the stomach, he stumbles and kneels down.
He is clutching his stomach, but Ashly goes up to him and pulls his hair to force him to look at her. Ashly then knees his face, and he falls to the ground covering his face as he bleeds more.
Ashly then looks around. "Alright I won this easy shit, now will you all take me seriously?" she asks but this was embarrassing, this man didn't know how to fight properly. The man tries to get back up and he is covering his face
They all look at her with amusement and silence. "I'll say this once more, she fought Robert head on. She fought him with her fists alone, and all I did was just shoot him afterwards, she did all the work." Lucas says as he smiles at Ahsly and she smiles back.
"What! This is very disrespectful, our leader is never wrong." The tall Zoryem said as they all grab their guns, Lucas then points the gun around. "Tell us how are you going to handles this situation, can you survive this?" They say mockingly.
Lucas is a bit nervous. "Alright come at me then, you are all cowards that rely on numbers. I'll make sure to kill as many of you as possible if I have to. You will then have no power to attack the Lurkers so its more of a lose to you than me." Ashly says loudly as she halves around.
"I need your help, please listen to me!" Before things could escalate they all heard loud screaming from outside. They all go to check out the window, it's Amir and he is tired.
"Wait! I recognize that man, I'll go outside and talk to him. I'll deal with him while the rest of you guys stay still." One of them says as he goes outside, Amir approaches him. "What do you want, are you lost or something?"
"Oh thank goodness, you remember me right? I know a lot about you guys, but I need your help and It'll be appreciated if you listen." Amir says frantically, and the Zoryem looks back and then sighs.
He lets him inside, and if he is going to be trouble, he can have him killed like the two others. Amir goes into the room, and he spots Lucas and Ashly. He can see everyone has their weapons, and he guesses that something was about to happen.
"Who is this guy?" Lucas asks as he is confused by how he looks different than the others.
"Oh I'm a friend of a friend." He then turns to Ashly. "You do remember Daniel right? I'm his friend, and he must of told you about me, I'm Amir."
"I don't remember who this man Daniel is nor do I remember him speaking to you. Don't worry I'll listen to you if we can take on this situation." Ashly puts her hands up in the air for some form of truce.
"Daniel is the guy you were with a few months ago, you two killed twelve Lurkers. Sure you did most of the work, but I though you two were friends." Amir says, but Ashly doesn't look like she so buying it.
"I know him and he isn't lying, he hates lying, and he is a good friend. Fine I guess some women can be strong, but not enough to kill Robert." Said the Zoryem and Ashly sighs.
This is going to be the furthest they'll acknowledge her strength. She is going to accept this for now, but she isn't going to like it.
"Look I need the help of all of you guys to help me and Daniel. We want to weaken the Iron Deadlock as they are after Daniel." Amir pleads hoping that they would agree with him.
"Yeah sure why not, we hate those assholes a bit less than the Lurkers. We wanted to kill the Lurkers first, but this is a great excuse to go after them as well." A Zoryem said.
"That's great as my plan involves both parties fighting, this will help you all. If this ends well you guys will take power, and that's much better than these people." Amir says.
"Alright then, but can we go? I'm tired of this ugly place. Can we join you Amir? We aren't in good terms right now with these people." Ashly says and Amir agrees, and as they begin leave the Zoryem talk to each other about how weird this all turned out.