Stealthy approach

A young girl climbs up the mountain path while carrying a huge stone on her back. Her arms are full of bruises and her legs quivered on each step. She had been working non stop for 12 hours now, bringing up material from the ruins in the foot of the mountain to the new construction site on top of it.

Step... step... step... step...

Each step was a challenge. She had long reached her limit but still tried her best to fulfill her master's wishes. Their old base now lied in ruins and, if she didn't want to follow the same destiny, she had to do the impossible to appease her Master's anger.

"Useless trash! Work faster!"

A young man suddenly kicks the girl from behind, making he girl lose her balance and fall on the mud. The stone escapes her hands, rolling down the mountain path and stopping a hundred meters below them. Luckily nobody was in the way, or a tragedy could have happened.

The man grabs a stick and starts beating her up. "This is the punishment for your mistake!" he says. New bruises are added to her legs, arms and body, but the girl doesn't give out a single word of complain. After all, isn't it her fault? She she failed her master, so she deserved this pain.

Tired of beating her up, the man takes a step back and shout at her ear.

"Get up! Quickly! We don't have all day!"

The harsh words from her master wake her up from her dizzy state and she tries to get up again, however her legs fail and she falls on the ground, splashing mud all around her. A bit of mud falls in the man's clothes, who responds violently cursing and kicking her again and again.

Two other girls approach the scene, carrying material in their backs just like the girl before them. They had been born just a few hours ago and still had energy to spare. They looked down their senior being beaten up and quickened their pace. Right now their master was angry and staying here would only lead to a bad end.

-

In the silent forest, faint noises of footsteps disturbed the peace. The plants shook, getting pushed around and a line of shadows proceeded sneakily step by step.

The cat girls were now transporting the material from their old base ruins to the new one so if Apollo's company had used the same path as their target, they would have been noticed right away. Because Apollo wanted to avoid confrontation for as long as possible, they had no choice but find or make another way.

Actually all their effort would be wasted if only their enemy took a single look at the HQ's map. The system had long detected them and, without an advanced stealth technology, it was absolutely impossible for anything to enter it's range without being detected by it, no matter what path they had decided to take. But, luckily, their enemy's master was too busy now looking after the construction and the thought of checking his map didn't even cross his head, so the group remained undetected as proceeded cutting the forest and forming the new pathway.

Night arrived again just as they approached the new base. This wasn't exactly planned, but the result of many setbacks encountered as they proceeded in the way. Making their own path through the dense forest proved to be more of a challenge than they expected, not only it took way longer and wasted a lot of energy, but, sometimes, it led to dead ends forcing them to back track a little to find another way.

Apollo sneaked a peak at the enemy camp and what he saw made him furious.

It was easy to recognized the enemy's master as he was the only human male among all of them. The bastard was now torturing one of his servants, kicking her while she was down and raining down insults upon her. Meanwhile all other servants continued their job, ignoring their own sister's cries of pain.

A hand held Apollo's shoulder, stopping him from rushing in. He looked back and saw Daisy's eyes were not looking at him, but at the barracks constructed a few meters behind. Following her gaze, Apollo saw a group of 10 soldiers exit from the barracks in newly made clothes. They presented themselves to their Master and waited for his command.

(If I attack now, we will lose. It won't be only their soldiers who will be fighting, but also the over twenty servants who are also on their side... Let's focus on striking their HQ instead! If he can't command them, even outnumbered I believe we will still win!)

"Sir, may I act as a bait again?"

"Eh? Daisy? What are you saying? These are not boars! If you try that, you will be surrounded and pined down!"

"It should be enough to act as a distraction and enable you to reach their HQ."

(The enemy is not aware of us... this could work, but it will leave Daisy in a dangerous position. I think they would try to capture her first, instead of killing her, but is this really something I should risk?)

The images of the massacre down the mountain were still in Apollo's mind, making him hesitant to take any risk. Noticing the problem, Daisy, whose face had a cold expression since arriving in the ruins, made a carefree smile and spoke in a warm tone.

"It's going to be okay. Trust me!"

"...All right, but you are not going alone. Iris, Ivy! You two accompany her!"

""Yes, sir!""

"Sneak near them and allow them to catch a glimpse of you, then run down the mountain while creating as much trouble as possible."

""Understood!""

"Paula, Beatrice, May. You will strike the enemy's HQ and destroy it as fast as possible!"

""Right away!""

"Mika, Sora, Jun, Kiki. You will be responsible for fending off the enemies that try to stop Paula's company from reaching their objective!"

""We shall do as you command!""

"Hey, Kiki, wake up!"

"Eh? Oh! Right..."

"Lumina, you will stay with me and observe the situation. Hide the baggage here as well, I may need to have you pass down a few messages for me."

"Yes!"

The three groups slowly started to move. The cold wind of the night had just arrived, but something told him things would start to get hot soon over there...