บท 22: Friends or Foes?

Hearing the name, puppeteer Ray got shocked. Ray took the man's hand and got up. The man helped Ray walk, and both of them got close to Yuki.

Ray sat down and leaned to Yuki. This time Ray felt that Yuki was breathing.

Ray said, "Yuki. Yuki's alive."

The man sat down next to Ray and said, "Of course she is. Yuri's whip can't kill. The poison just paralyses the opponent. Yuki should wake up soon in a few hours."

Ray lets out a sigh of relief. He asks, "Yuri?"

"Oh yeah. Yuri Volkov. He's the boy who was fighting your spirit."

"Oh."

By then, Yuri and the pink-haired girl had reached them. The girl was holding the place where Ray had kicked her. But Yuri was almost all right. Ray got a little surprised because he was sure that his punch and his body hitting the car would've at least broken a few bones in his body.

The moment the pink-haired girl saw Ray, she readied her bow to shoot him.

But the sword-wielding guy stopped her.

"Wait wait, wait, wait. Don't shoot, don't shoot. He's a Jaeger like us."

Hearing this, the girl lowered her bow and started coming towards them. Yuri's whip had turned into a snake and was wrapped around his neck.

Yuri and the pink-haired girl came close to them, and the pink-haired girl sat down on the bonnet of a car close to them.

Yuri went to her, and the snake jumped down from him. The snake bit the pink-haired girl and then got back on Yuri and wrapped itself around Yuri's neck.

The sword wielding man said, "Yuri, heal him too. We're the ones who injured him."

Yuri nodded and came to Ray.

He said, "Raise your hand."

Ray obliged and did so. The snake extended from Yuri's neck and bit Ray in the hand. In a few minutes, Ray started feeling better. His injuries started healing too.

The sword-wielding man said, looking towards his sword, "You can return back now, Katarina."

Suddenly the sword lit up and started changing its form. When the light disappeared, there stood a young Russian girl. She had dark blue long hair and aquamarine blue eyes. She was wearing the black uniform of the United Asian front of the Jaeger corps. Ray was astonished at what he saw. Noticing this, the sword-wielding man said, "OK. Time for a formal introduction. My name is Captain Conrad Vasili. I'm the squad leader of the 47th Assault platoon of the Russian front. In this is my spirit, Katarina. She's one of the five generals and can transform into a sword."

Katarina waved her hand and said, "Heya."

Ray could notice the smugness in his voice while he said the last bit.

Conrad looked at the other two and said, "Come on, you two. Introduce yourselves."

They nodded. Yuri started, "Hello. My name is Sgt. Yuri Volkov. I'm a soldier of the 47th Assault platoon of the Russian front. And this is my spirit, Ron."

Ron hissed, but it sounded friendly instead of threatening.

The pink-haired girl spoke next, "Hello. My name is Major Sakura Mori. I'm not assigned to any specific platoon. I work under straight orders from New Eden. And this is My Spirit, Sky."

In a moment, the bow transformed into a hawk.

The hawk said, "Hello, boy. I'm also one of the five generals." Ray noticed he was wearing the uniform of Lost Eden operators. Olive green uniform with black lining. He also noticed that she didn't have the confident demeanour from before. But he didn't think much of it.

Conrad said with a smile, "So, young man? What are you doing here? You don't look like you're from here."

Ray didn't know if it'd be the right thing to do to tell the truth, but he couldn't come up with a lie on the spot either.

"Uhm.. My name is Ray Foster. I'm British but have been living in the south for the last 10 years. This is my spirit, Yuki. Around a month ago..." Ray went on to explain everything, but he carefully excluded their reason for coming here.

"And that's how we ended up here."

As he looked around after the end of his story, "He saw Conrad crying."

Ray got uncomfortable as he saw that. Conrad slapped Ray's back and said as he kept crying, "What a harsh thing to go through at a small age. Oh, my boy. Oh… "

Yuri came and stopped Conrad from killing Ray of overslapping.

Yuri said, "I'm sorry for my captain's behavior. He can get a little emotional at times. But hearing your story, you've already fought the puppeteer once before, right? If you have no other plans, can we ask you to accompany us in our hunt?"

The question caught him off-guard. He said, "I... I don't know. Please give me some time to think. I want to discuss this with Yuki too when she wakes up."

Yuri said, "Of course, of course. Take your time. We're going to take a break here too."

Ray said, "Thank you."

Katarina suddenly spoke. She said, "Hello, Ray. May I ask a question? There's a little something I want to make sure."

Ray said, "Uh. Yeah. What is it?"

Katarina said, "Your spirit, is she Silverfang?"

Ray was surprised at that name and asked, "SilverFang? Who's that?"

Sky said, "She's one of the five generals too. Your spirit looks a lot like her."

Ray looked at Yuki and said, "I don't know. She never told me her real name. Whenever I asked, she'd just say it's too embarrassing to say."

Katarina said, "Now, I'm more convinced. Spearfang never liked her name that much."

Conrad said, "I actually like your name. It's pretty cool."

Ray asked, "Her name? What is it?"

Conrad said, "Oh. You want to know? Her real name is Brunhilde."