I’ve returned from that abyssal black pit people call…reality. >.> One of my friends who moved to another country came back to visit today. We threw a big party for her, it was fun, and it was great to see her again =D However, because of this, this chapter and the one after it will be a bit lower-quality, because I’m probably going to do something incredibly stupid like attempt to write three chapters in…one hour. Not spiffy.

Whee! Our protagonists have successfully defeated the Fighter who took out Az in Chapter 1. However, finding her accomplice, the magician Allamar, has proved difficult…

—-
i. Li
“This sucks.” I couldn’t think of anything better to say and just sat there, scowling at the ships bobbing up and down in the harbour. Teo was negotiating with a Warrior – probably for another shiny rock. Man, if I had a shiny rock collection like his…

Az nodded in gloomy assent, and I thought for a second that, finally, he would be serious. But instead he said, “I didn’t get to eat Doom Flounder.”
“Why in the Dark Lord’s name would you want to try Doom Flounder anyway?” I muttered, slumping back beside him. “I bet it would suck too.” My stomach grumbled in agreement, and I glanced across at him. He appeared to be staring at something near the docks, and stood up. Hastily, I followed as he began to walk quickly down to the dockside. The S. S. Maple hovered at a wharf in all her glowing glory, and I glanced at it. He stopped for a moment to look at it too. Shanks pottered around on deck and I stopped to reminisce, remembering how we had almost gotten thrown off the boat. All Az’s fault, naturally.

“Do you remember when we were…noobs?” The word sounded unfamiliar in his mouth, and I was glad for that. If he’d said it with any degree of confidence I would have cheerfully strangled him on the spot. Then I took to thinking about the question, and groaned.
“How could I forget,” I growled. “It was only the most embarrassing moment of my life.” He looked at me, grinned his infuriating grin, and said, “You were a pathetic thief. You still are.”
“Hey!” I snarled. “Don’t forget who managed to pay for our meals yesterday and today with her thief skills.” He shrugged, and the only thing he said was, “I’ll laugh whenever I see Lupins forever because of that.” I felt my ears heat up and ducked my head while he laughed at me.

“You weren’t such an amazing bandit to start with either,” I managed finally, fitting the words edgewise in while he drew a breath through his hysterics. “I remember your first day with a knife-” He dodged in and clapped a hand over my mouth, leaning in to comment in a dramatic stage whisper, “You’ll ruin my good reputation.”
“You never had a good reputation,” I scoffed, once he removed his hand from my mouth. “If you ever did I would have laughed at you.”
“I did,” he answered quickly, looking affronted. “Remember Amherst?” As the memory of that hit me like a shot between the eyes, I whacked myself on my forehead with the heel of my palm and ground out, “That. Was. A. One. Off.”
“No, that was my fftfgrblge.” The last word was mauled into incoherency, mainly due to the fact that I had pulled off my hat and stuffed it over his face.

As soon as I removed it, he pulled a face at me that was so exaggerated that I began laughing. I just couldn’t stop. He sighed and said, “Well, having a hat that’s been spat on, dropped in mud, trampled, filled with unwashed hair and-”
“I wash my hair!” I yelled indignantly and made as if to punch him in the shoulder. He caught my wrist, and something oddly familiar flickered at the corner of my eye. I turned; so did he.

“Well, loverbirds,” Allamar commented, infuriatingly cool, leaning against a stack of crates. “I see you’re making the most of your time together.” Az had drawn his shinkita before she even finished speaking, and I had my Steelys out in no time.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I growled, readying a knife. She just raised one eyebrow; that movement seemed to say it all; a sceptical, Oh really. I could almost hear her saying it in her sarcastic tones. My arm was moving before I’d even thought about it, subconsciously believing this was the usual cause of irritation. I realised my mistake the moment the knife left my hand, but it never reached its target.

It was halted midair by a loud clang of metal on metal and clattered to the cobbled stones, wet with sea air. Az lowered his cutter and gave me a warning look far from his usual infuriating demeanour; I nodded and shoved my claw hand down, keeping it there.

“We trashed your deadbeat Fighter friend,” I said, glaring at her. She smiled slightly and replied, “I don’t make friends with idiots. Or losers, for that matter.” Her smile widened marginally and her gaze flicked between us. “I can’t say the same for you two.” He had grabbed my shoulder before I had even moved, and this was one of the times I was glad that he knew me so closely.
“What do you know about Finesse?” he asked tersely. His voice had lost that usual joking, dreamy edge and was now harsh, raw, frightening. I hadn’t seen this Az for a long time, and wished silently I wouldn’t have cause to ever again. Even though I knew we hadn’t seen the end of this.

The fire wizard’s expression didn’t reveal even the slightest flicker of recognition. I could and would have jumped on her and bashed her up within seconds if he wasn’t still restraining me.
“I wouldn’t know a thing about the matter,” she answered, raising herself off the crates, and I gave her the Look of Death. She just gave me that look of assured superiority, the one that made my fists itch. She was just beginning to walk away when he let me go and I Hasted after her, grabbing on to the back of her Moonlight and forcibly yanking her around.

“You know something,” I growled, taking hold of her by the collar and shaking her. Az walked beside her, shinkita raised, and nodded towards the docks. I looked at him, startled, but nodded back as I yanked the fire magician over to the edge of the walkway, where it was a nine-yard drop into the ocean. Then I gave her the most threatening look I could muster and shook her a few times, as if to make my point clear. For the first time, I thought I saw something flicker in her eyes.

“Your Fighter friend mentioned the name,” Az said. There was now no trace left of the normal, flippant Az who ticked me off so much, and I shivered involuntarily. I think he noticed, for he added, “Before she tried to reshape my head,” in an attempt to restore some humour to the situation.

“Well,” Allamar said quietly, smiling. “You want to find out? Are you still too stupid to figure it out by now?”
“Stop playing games,” I hissed. “Now, before I turn you into fish feed.” She looked at me briefly, but her gaze was really on Az.
“But it’s all a great big game,” she whispered, so softly I had to strain to hear her over the yells of the birds and the sashay of the waves breaking against the pier. All these things sounded amazingly loud right now, and as I turned to glance at him with a slight sense of trepidation, I saw him frowning. He evidently couldn’t hear her, so I leaned back to her, watching her carefully.

“It’s all a great big game,” she repeated, in the same soft tones. “And your friend there is the king, all alone, except for his doting queen.” I glared at her, but she just continued, “The other side are waiting, Talian. The moment you and dear Azrael let your guards down, they’ll pounce. And my master and I will be watching. For you.” Another pause, then she added, “Tell your darling it has to end where it began.”

The sudden roar of a boat’s engines startled me and, in that distracted moment, Allamar wrenched out of my loosened grip and leapt into the ocean. Az let out a yell of, “No!” and lunged; I grabbed him just in time to prevent him from going over too. The S. S. Maple, the offending boat, launched into the air back towards Maple as I made rude gestures at it. Az was just staring at the surface of the water, and I looked at him, asking, “What’s wrong?” He pointed at the ocean and I chanced a look; nothing. The waves masked any ripples.

“Do you think she drowned?” I asked, after we had watched for a few minutes. He shrugged and said in a strained voice, “Hard to tell.” Another few beats of silence passed before he asked, “What did she say?”

ii. Az
I turned it over in my head a few times, confused, and furiously angry at myself still. Li was watching me with that wary look on her face, and I made an effort to smile at her. She smiled back, cautiously, and I sighed and relaxed. It was a game? All right, but we were going to take it all the way to the players, and break the board over their heads.

“Then we go back to where it began,” I said, turning and picking up the knife I’d deflected. “Do we still have ten thousand mesos?”
—-
Angst! D= I’ll write a more comprehensive author’s note later. In the meantime, I have House to watch. Hope you guys enjoy the chapter…while this is the end of Overture, it’s by no means the end of Az and Li. Watch out for the next arc of Bandit’s Sin, Prime Factors, where our favourite thiefly duo go on another trip…to reprise Az’s past and end the mystery of Finesse once and for all.

EDIT: Comprehensie author’s note…not forthcoming! Mainly because I have nothing to say. Apart from “If you liked my story, read Silver’s! It’s AWESOME COOLNESS!”

Yep, that’s it from me.