Rayla stalked through a dark forest. The darkness was no problem to her nor to her kind as Moonshadow elves are creatures of the night, connected to the magical energy of the Moon primal. As Rayla walked silently on the forest floor, she spotted something, a cloaked figure with their back turned to her. Only once when she saw the five-fingered hands did she realized that the figure before her was a human, and even probably a dark mage.
Rayla crouched down, not willing to let herself to be seen by the mage before her, who seemed to be uneasy about something before relaxing. Once she's sure they had let their guard down, she tried to sneak up on them, but they quickly noticed her and let out a blast of wind from their mouth at her while shouting, "Aspiro!" The blast caused Rayla to roll backwards and land on her back. Shocked by what just happened, yet furious that her sneak attack didn't work, Rayla ran up to the mage and held both of her blades to the mage's neck.
"No, please!" the mage exclaimed, holding his hands up.
Rayla froze when she heard his plea and took a peek under his cloak's hood, revealing a pair of green eyes filled with fear. Before Rayla could do something else next, she felt paws on her leg. She turned to see a small baby Storm dragon looking at her with pleading blue eyes. Unable to resist, Rayla lowered her blades, allowing the mage to remove his cloak's hood, revealing himself to be a teenager about her age, with brown hair and his green eyes almost having no fear in them anymore. Then, out of nowhere, a girl around her age arrived and stood next to them in a protective stance. She pulled down her hood to reveal her to be a teenager with long, wavy sandy-blonde hair and her determined blue eyes meeting Rayla's eyes boldly. The boy picked up the baby dragon as Rayla looked at the humans and the dragon before her in shock.
Rayla opened up her eyes with a jolt as she woke up from her dream. Who was those mages and baby dragon? Why did they appear to her in her dream? How can the human mage do primal magic without a primal stone? And why did she hesitate to kill the mage upon hearing his pleas and seeing the fear in his eyes? She was an assassin. She wasn't supposed to hesitate, she wasn't supposed to think about what she was doing, and she wasn't supposed to sympathize with the enemy. If she did any of those things, how could she avenge the deaths of the Dragon King and Prince, let alone the deaths of her parents if she met their killer? Maybe Ethari was right. Maybe she wasn't meant to be an assassin, let alone being able to actually kill.
Unable to think about something else, Rayla quietly crawled and saw that the other members of her team were still asleep expect for Ram, who is currently on a scouting mission to look for any humans on the lookout for them, and should come back anytime soon. Once she's out of her tent, she climbed to the top of a tree branch and sat there, pondering about her dream and what could it mean. Was it trying to tell her that she'll met a human that can do primal magic without a primal stone? Yeah, right. Humans can't do primal magic. Was the dream trying to tell she maybe wasn't be meant to be an assassin or killer like Ethari said too? She already told of that before she and the other assassins left home. She didn't need to be reminded of that.
Frustrated, Rayla looked up at the moon. It was almost full, but tomorrow night, it'll be full, the perfect time to carry out the mission she, Runaan, Callisto, Skor, Andromeda, and Ram were sent out to do: kill King Harrow of Katolis and his son, Prince Ezran, and avenge the deaths of the Dragon King and the Dragon Prince. Hopefully on that night also, she would find her parents' killer and put an end to him.
"Hey, Rayla!" a voice said behind Rayla and looked to see Ram on a tree branch. "What are you doing up at this time of night?"
"Hello, Ram," Rayla said as Ram jumped off from the branch and landed behind her. While Ram can be a deadly assassin, he is a spunky fellow when not doing any assassination assignments.
"Why are you up here?" Ram looked at her curiously. "You're not thinking about the mission, are you?"
"Sort of," Rayla admitted. "I was mostly thinking of a dream I just had. I was in a forest and I saw a human who was an actual primal mage and a baby Sky dragon was with him."
"A human primal mage?" Ram asked, confused before he looked around. "How can there be one? Humans can't do primal magic naturally."
"Yeah. I thought so too." Rayla decided to go into a full explanation for Ram. "When I first saw that mage, I thought he was a dark mage, so I tried to sneak up on him, but he defended himself with an Aspiro spell. Then I had both of my blades at his neck when I heard him plea and I saw the fears in his eyes. I couldn't find myself to kill him. That's when I saw the baby dragon and saw that age is about my age and he almost had no fear in his eyes. Then he picked up the wee dragon and was joined by a human girl with brave eyes. The next thing I knew, I woke up and couldn't stop thinking about it."
"Is that why you're up here?" Ram asked her.
"Yeah." Rayla looked down uncertainly. "I cannot help but think that my dream might be trying to tell me something like I wasn't meant to be an assassin like Ethari said or I might meet a human primal mage. How can I assassinate anyone if I hesitated, let alone avenge some people?"
"That could be a problem for our mission." Ram patted her shoulder reassuringly. "The mage from your dream wasn't our target, so it's alright you hesitated to kill him. However, you must not do so on our mission. This is serious. One must not hesitate when doing an actual assassination. Hesitation has no place in it nor does sympathy for the enemy and thinking about what you are doing."
"I know that," replied Rayla. "It just how can I do it? I never done it before."
"I used to hesitate when I was your age," Ram admitted. "Got told to not be that way by my instructor for it a lot. But, eventually, I have gotten by the time I went on my first mission, and I think Runaan knows you can get better too. You can prove Ethari wrong, that you're too soft-hearted to be an assassin."
"Thanks, Ram," Rayla said sarcastically. "Really great trying to get me to try to be a real assassin."
"Well, let's get some sleep," Ram said, stretching out before jumping off the branch. "Xadia's counting on us to deliver our justice on King Harrow and Prince Ezran tomorrow night. Can't do it without sleep. Hopefully, we won't get caught by any pesky human guards."
Rayla didn't say anything, but followed her fellow Moonshadow elf back to camp. But unknowingly, a group of magical, smoky elves has spotted them and secretly followed them.
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Runaan sat quietly on a rock as he mediated. Everything seemed peaceful for the elf, until a shadow came from his left and try to slash him. However, Runaan dodged the attack and the shadow, revealed to be Ram, ungracefully landed on his face.
"Too soon, Ram," Runaan said as Ram got up, spitted out grass and dirt from his mouth and sat crisscrossed with his arms crossed and pouting.
Soon, another shadow appeared from behind Runaan and tried to attack him. But, Runaan dodged the second shadow, Skor, and he ended tripping on a root, rolling on his back and bumping back first against a tree.
"Ow!" Skor moaned in pain as he land on his stomach.
"Too clumsy, Skor," Runaan said. Skor's response was to sit back up, spit out some grass from his mouth, and glare at his leader.
Then, a third shadow came from Runaan's right and tried to slit him on the cheek, but he outstretched his leg and caused the shadow, Andromeda, to trip and fall on top of Skor.
"Too slow, Andromeda," Runaan said, sounding unimpressed. Both Andromeda and Skor moaned as they get off of each other.
A fourth shadow jumped from a branch above, letting out a cry, but Runaan grabbed him by the ankle and threw him to the ground.
"Too rash and noisy, Callisto," Runaan scolded. "You have to do better than that."
Callisto just glared at Runaan, while crossing his arms. While Runaan was occupied with Callisto, a fifth shadow appeared from behind a tree, ran towards Runaan from behind, and slashed the lead assassin's left cheek with one of her blades, causing a trickle of blood to leak down on his face.
"Wow, she did it." Ram smiled proudly at the fifth elf. "And she didn't even hesitated or think about it. Maybe, she really does to have what it takes to be an assassin."
Runaan touched the blood from his cut and looked at it on his fingers for a few moments, before turning to Rayla. "Well done, Rayla."
"Yeah..." Rayla said, feeling flustered. "Though, I could've used both of my blades."
"You're lucky I'm not our targets for tonight. Once any of them is in your sight, you could do that," Runaan said before tossing a cloth to Rayla, which she caught and used to clean of Runaan's blood from her blade. "As for the rest of you, try to do better than what you did. If you cannot try to attack me without making a mistake, our targets will escape their well-deserved justice by our hands."
A thin black rope was thrown around her wrist and pulled her back, causing her to dop her blade. "Hey!" Rayla exclaimed in anger and pulled on the rope to free herself. When that failed, she took the rope off. At that moment, a dark mage emerged from the bushes with some shadowy fake elves by her side.
Despite being somewhat scared, Rayla refused to show it and prepared herself to stay and fight.
"Looks like waiting for you bloodthirsty elven assassins to come is easier than I first thought," said the dark mage. "I just didn't know it would be this easy the moment I spotted you coming in."
"Rayla!" Runaan only managed to get up to his feet before another fake elf put a cloth over his mouth and Ethari watched on helplessly from the wagon. The other assassins didn't like what they were seeing and tried to help, but they too have roped flung around their necks and gotten cloths around their mouths, much to Rayla and Runaan's horror.
"Well, would you look at that? First, you came. Then, all of the rest, thinking they can help you out," the dark mage said to Rayla. "Instead they let themselves get caught one by one."
Rayla in a fit of rage, tried to charge at her, but a shadowy elf swung a rope around her ankle. She tried to charge at it, but another flung a rope around his left wrist. Then another flung a rope around her right wrist. Rayla struggled against the ropes, but the fake elves pulled at her with their respective ropes, until one pulled the rope around her ankle and she fell to the ground.
"That was both easy and hard getting all of you into the trap," the dark mage said. "Now it's done, perhaps all of you will behave much better once we reach St. Aegolius." She turned to the fakes elves. "Tie them all up. Then, confiscate their weapons and get them loaded up into the wagon. Then, load up the others next. We have a schedule to keep."
The fake elves did as the mage told them and sure enough, one by one, they loaded all the Moonshadow elves into the wagon after confiscating the assassins' weapons, dragging them to it with the ropes around their wrists. Once all of them were in the wagon, the Moonshadow elves were off with the dark mage riding her own horse while commanding a black mare, and the fake elves, to go forward towards this St. Aegolius place the dark mage mentioned. The elves were all scared and they didn't know what's going to happen to them. But at least they were killed. If anything, there could be a chance from them to escape when the time is right. But, so far, none came.