• Chapter 3: When You Have Nowhere to go
    A few hours later Leon was back at the camp with some basic supplies: a tent, a fire making kit, and some canteens. He had been quiet, so Nina decided to ask him about it. “What’s wrong Leon?” Leon looked up, and then sighed. “Nothing you need to know about.” Was his only response, every time she tried to ask, he replied the same way. Later that night, Leon said they needed to begin traveling, and head towards the mountain range called the Twisted Spires in the western continent. “Why do we need to go there?” Nina asked. “We will be safer there than here, and there are many areas that haven’t been touched by anyone in centuries,” He looked up at the sky and continued, “We will leave tomorrow, so be ready.”
    It was a day later and Nina was still asking questions. “Why can’t you fly there? You have wings.” “I couldn’t fly for very long with you and all of our things, it would be faster to walk.” It wasn’t long before “Are we there yet? My feet hurt.” And then later there was an artificial life form walking through the woods with a pack camping gear and a little girl on his back. They had already gotten to a town in a day and a half (not the previously mentioned one). But Leon was wondering why most of the houses were stone cottages and not metal structures, when he questioned someone about it, they gave an easy to believe answer, “If you don’t belong to one of the warring factions, then you live in a non-technological age.” He gave Nina a small bag of gold and left her at the market for an hour while he went to get a room at the local inn and see what normal humans did to pass the time. When he came back he found Nina standing near the large wooden door, holding something behind her back, with a big smile on her face. “So, what did you buy?” Leon wondered. *giggle* “Come here and I’ll show you.” “Okay…?” Leon walked over to her and again asked her what she bought. “Tadaaaah!” Nina held out a large sword(about 5 feet long and 10 inches wide), with the grey metal scabbard lined with rubies, the handle (extended, of course) was made of a charcoal-black wood and had red metal vines twirling around it, and when he pulled out the sword he saw it had been colored black with a white edge and he could also see that a master craftsman had made this (you see, while they had been studying Leon at the institute, he had read, everything he could about the world outside his small room). “But, I didn’t give you enough gold for this.” He realized. “Yep, I stole some from peoples bags.” She whispered. Leon suddenly looked serious, “You shouldn’t do that, it could get you in a lot of trouble and I don’t want to cause problems.” “So does that mean I have to take the sword back?” Leon thought for a minute then said, “Nah.” Nina smiled and they made their way to the Inn to put their things away.

    Chapter 4: A small problem
    On the way to the Inn they had to go through an alleyway, so of course, about halfway through, a man wielding a long knife jumped out of the shadows. “Give me all your money!” He declared. Leon looked the stranger up and down and replied “I don’t think so.” The stranger was aghast, “What?” Leon was calm as he repeated, “No.” The stranger remembered he had a knife and jumped at Leon *CRACK!* the knife had broken as it had hit one of Leon’s claws. The stranger looked at the knife, then Leon’s claw and said, “What are you?” He continued staring until Leon said, “My turn.” And punched the stranger in the stomach. They walked out of the alleyway right as people began to stand around a hole in one of the walls, with a man unconscious in the rubble.
    After they had eaten a good meal at the Inn, Leon and Nina went to bed. When they woke up the next morning there was a commotion outside, and some people were shouting loudly, so Nina went to investigate, leaving Leon alone in the room, just… well, I guess he went back to sleep, I wouldn’t know, the camera guy followed Nina. So, anyway, Nina went down to the square to see what was going on, and there was a heated argument going on between the Innkeeper and a soldier: “I don’t care if it’s a family heirloom, it’s worth something to the commander so you are going to hand it over!” The soldier was saying… loudly. “I will not!” the Innkeeper responded in an equally loud tone. “Anything of value belongs to the Star Cavalry!” The soldier persisted. “If it’s yours, take it from me.” The Innkeeper said. “… I will once we finish searching the rest of your little Inn.” The soldier replied, “Men! Search the upper levels of the building!” “Sir! Yes Sir!” The soldiers cried. As they began marching up the stairs to the second floor of the building Nina followed them inside, wondering what they were doing. She watched as they tore apart the dressers looking for things of value and then watched as they opened the traveler’s bags and dumped out the contents. Satisfied that there was nothing on the second floor, the soldiers headed up to the third floor. “Hey Sergeant! This one’s got a fancy sword!” one of the troopers hollered as they continued searching, “Hehehe, I’ll just be taking that.”
    The Sergeant was outside the Inn looking through everything they had already taken when a soldier flew through one of the top story windows. “What in the?” The sergeant said. Two more troopers flew up through the roof and landed on top of the first one with a thud. Leon Jumped out of the window he had previously thrown a soldier through. He landed in the crowd and people scattered, he looked at his new sword, “Good a time as any to try this out.” He decided, but he kept the scabbard on as he was already in enough trouble already. Two soldiers rushed at him, he flipped his sword around, ramming one in the gut with the handle, broadsiding the other with the flat of his sword, and then chopping a third one in the neck (remember he isn’t using the blade). Nina jumped on his back and cheerfully said, “Ok, we can go now.” “About time, what did you need up there anyway?” Leon asked. Nina looked a little surprised, but told him anyway, “I needed to get some food for later.” “Oh.” Leon knew she was lying but didn’t feel like questioning her. He launched himself off the ground and took flight (again, remember he can’t fly very far with anything other than himself but the soldiers don’t know that).