Elemental Divide

Prologue

The sun had just risen when a ship docked at Shipwreck, the exterior of its wooden hull coated in barnacles. Nets of lush seaweed coated in small yellow berries were unloaded by a group of wizards, while crates were carried off by Water Fey, some which were absolutely drenched from a dive on the way to shore.

Light glistened across the gently lapping waves, the pearly white sand being shifted as a passenger stepped off the ship, handing a fey their payment. A black tail flicked behind them as they adjusted their bag, walking along the shoreline until sand changed to yellow, and soon, the sight of a town met their gaze.

A flash of violet occurred in a desolate alley, a figure dressed nearly fully in black stepping out, their sapphire gaze judging. Almost immediately, they were forced to raise their hand to shield their eyes from the light, their sickly pale skin clearly having never seen the light of day. Static crackled in the air around them, before lightning strikes, leaving no scorch marks…or any sign of the figure.

Yellow and blue wings snapped shut as an avian stepped into the forest coverage, the feathers contrasting against the druidic tones of the forest. Their black gaze filled with indifference as they observed the flora, the woodland's magic wisping as they passed through.

Following a distance away was a brown-haired boy, clutching the strap of his bag as he anxiously observed the avian, eyes filled with undeniable curiosity, but movements filled with everlasting anxiety.

An Ivory was dragged to the Coliseum, their amber gaze displaying only resentment as they tried to resist, an unnoticed blade extending from their tail and coming in contact with flash, providing them opening to escape. They wasted no time in running, tail flicking to withdraw the blade as red stained golden fur, arms being brought above their head and yanked down—the momentum snapping chains and causing iron links to clatter to the floor. A commotion soon broke out within the freshly awakened townsfolk as cat-eared battler burst out of the building, a blue gaze filled with elation of the chase, the feline-like figure wasting no time in pursuing the fey.

Meanwhile, the Bounty Hunter swore as they summoned green essence, healing the stab wound and grumbling about how they have to fix their coat again…and perhaps get a worker’s comp.

On the outskirts of Lamplight, a figure with black-red hair smirked as they watched the manhunt, not even lifting a finger to stop the fugitive fey as they raced by, soon followed by a blue haired girl, her braided hair batted about by the wind. Instead, the darker redhead crouched down, picking up an iron clasp that had clattered to the ground.

After inspecting the black-gray, cool metal drenched with sweat, they nodded to themselves before standing and following the two—much too casually—entertainment evident.

As the three moved far out of sight, a male presenting wizard simply frowned, their blue stare hostile at the sight of the pursuit. They stood at the other side of the street, their icy robes flailing when they abruptly moved out of sight, clearly holding no positive feelings for the ongoing events.

High above the island, within the depths of a school, a series of seven figures expressed varying outlooks of the building’s segregation, but none dared show disapproval.

This was all for the greater good, and it was clearly successful.

Shadow had not shown itself for years.

.

.

.

A wizard–clearly being Academic in nature–clutched a book to their chest, their checkered scarf wrapped so the loose ends would drape against their back. Their pure white hair hung down to their waist, their dark skin providing contrast. They looked like any other wizard, really, seeming to just be an Academy student.

But when you meet their gaze…

…a violet one stared back.

Elemental Divide

Deep within the forest, the avian stopped in a clearing and grimaced as several of their feathers fluttered to the ground. They sighed, picking them up and stuffing them in a pouch, before pulling out a pair of earmuffs and a long roll of tape from a bag.

I have to be quick.

They chucked off their tunic and wrapped the tape around their torso, grimacing at the feeling of pressure against their fragile extra limbs. A faint, strangled sound erupted from the distance, but they ignored it in favor of finishing the painful process.

A second, almost identical tunic was then pulled out of their bag and they almost hissed at the added pressure to the already crushing feeling. A second pair of wings folded inwards to be covered by the earmuffs. The transformation, if it could even be called that, was complete.

The avian wished they could see their reflection, make sure they were completely covered, but they didn’t have the time to go looking for a body of water.

Instead, they turned back to the direction of the odd noise, wondering what had made such a sound.

"Is... is someone there?" They called out quietly.

Much to their dread, leaves began crunching not too far away, indicating someone's presence.

And almost immediately after came a dull thud, followed by multiple leaf crunches at the same time.

The avian’s eyebrows raised as they cautiously approached the noise. They briefly considered using their magic, but after remembering that they weren’t in their proper region, they defaulted to picking up a fallen branch with a sharp tip.

They heard someone scrambling to stand back up, and decided to stop being cautious, making their way straight through the foliage. The leaves crinkled loudly under their shoes.

Soon enough, they ran into a wizard with eyes screwed completely shut, who turned in their direction, hands held up defensively.

The avian blinked. “Who… are you?”

After a few seconds of silence, the wizard opened his eyes. To their surprise, he seemed to sag in relief a little.

Suddenly the wizard perked up, realizing that he had been asked a question.

He raised his right hand, with every finger curled into his palm except for his index finger, which pointed upwards as he dragged it in a zig-zag motion. Immediately afterwards, he folded his fingers against his palm, keeping his thumb straight up along his index finger. He briefly opened his hand again and folded his fingers onto his palm with his thumb folded across his ring and little fingers while his index and middle finger were folded down over his thumb. Finally, he shifted his fingers so that they were partially folded with the tips of index, middle and ring fingers touching the thumb between the knuckle and the tip while his thumb was folded across his palm, yet not touching it.

"Zane, huh?" The wizard nodded.

"I'm... April." The avian hesitated. "Why were your... why were your eyes closed?"

Zane shuffled his feet awkwardly and avoided eye contact. The ground was looking particularly appealing in this very moment.

April frowned. "Okay... what are you doing here?"

Hiding, Zane signed.

"From who?"

...

The boy seemed hesitant to answer that question.

April blinked. "Were you hiding from me?"

Zane scratched the back of his head in a vain attempt at stalling. Slow motion suddenly caught the corner of his eye, and his eyes flicked towards the sharp branch that the avian was ever so slowly raising into the air. That seemed convincing enough.

Not anymore? he frantically signed.

“Why would you be hiding from me—“ April paused.

”You weren’t… you weren’t following me, were you?”

They looked tense, because if the wizard was following them then he would have seen…

”You weren’t, right?”

The boy stiffened, now considering as many routes of escape as he could while his face slowly turned into a barely noticable shade of eggplant purple.

"Zane." April growled. "You didn't see anything, right?"

No? Zane took a cautious step backwards.

"No... no feathers, or wings or anything like that?" April pressed.

Zane quickly shook his head, still keeping tabs on the stick still in April's hand.

It was growing painfully obvious that the wizard was terrible at lying.

April shook their head. "Okay. That's-that's fine. Just... you wouldn't tell anyone, would you? Since you saw nothing?"

Zane nodded, letting tensed muscles relax.

April sighed, also relaxing. They glanced around, growing increasingly aware of the awkwardness surrounding them, before they cleared their throat. "You don't have any... questions? About anything that you... did not see?"

I saw nothing, Zane signed, giving her a thumbs-up shortly after.

The avian opened their mouth, clearly about to say something else, when there was a distinct rustly sound, as if someone was moving in the nearby foliage. The totally-not-winged enby pointed the sharpened branch in the direction of the noise, while Zane began to back away, instincts screaming to run, when—

—bursting out of the bushes behind the two was a cloaked figure, their face completely covered covered by the hood as they stopped at seeing the two, hostility evident in their posture.

April peered at the hooded figure, knuckles white as they gripped the stick even tighter. They had immediately lost any interest in talking, but managed to say something.

“Who are you?” They asked quietly, weapon held up high. From behind them, Zane pulled out his own sword, although his grip was most definitely not a practiced one at all.

Without warning, thorned vines chaotically burst out of the ground from random places, throwing large amounts of dirt and leaves up into the air. Almost instantly after, a freezing cold mist rapidly swirled through the small area, carrying shards of ice and picking up the loose dirt and leaves and hurtling them in every possible direction, obscuring the hooded figures' visibility.

When the makeshift cyclone finally began to clear, both the wizard and the avian had seemingly disappeared into thin air.

In reality, vines had lowered from the treetops and hoisted the two into the trees, where they remained as still and quiet as possible. In April's tree, the vine responsible for yanking them out of sight remained wrapped around their waist for the time being. Meanwhile, in the tree across from them, a very tense Zane retained a knuckle-whitening grip on his vine. The anxious green and cyan glow in his eyes slowly began to fade as the thorned vines receded into the ground and the swirling mist completely dissipated.

April stared at the ground, the vines, the leftover frost, and then the wizard responsible for it all. Carefully, they hid their hands from any obvious view and signed, You’re a dual?

The wizard hesitated for a moment, clearly not wanting to confirm it. But April had already seen the course of events. They already knew the answer. No point in trying to deny it. And with that, Zane responded to the avian with a quick nod.

April bit their lip before nodding in return. Then, they both turned towards the hooded figure back on the ground.

The figure in question seemed taken aback, green essense of their own shipping around them, however, they didn't bother to investigate as the sound of footsteps arose, causing them to immediately run off into the right of the forest, instead using their magic to erase their footprints.

Zane's eyebrows furrowed in mild confusion. What caused that person to suddenly start running? And more importantly, will it still be safe in the trees?

As to answer their latter question, what could only be describedaa a cat girl burst out of the bushes the figure originated from, their blue, cat-like ears perked and alert.

They were clearly out of breath, glancing around the clearing as the stepped forward, tail lashing behind them.

The dual-elemented wizard in the trees carefully shifted his position, curiously peering at the girl.

Almost immediately, her ears perked and she stared up at the tree, eyes narrowed as she scanned for the source of the movement. It didn't take long for gaze to settle on the sight of the two, leading to a smirk, "Well, you two took 'sitting in a tree' literally, huh?"

Zane eyed the cat-like female warily. She didn't appear to be a Bounty Hunter, but still...

The boy opted to inch a little more out of sight, still keeping an eye on the blue-haired individual.

The bluenette arched a brow at the movement, "You wouldn't happen to see anyone who's gray, have you? ...or someone wearing a black cloak."

Zane turned his head towards April, unsure of the best course of action here.

April blinked back at Zane, belatedly realizing that they would have to talk for the both of them.

"Um. Maybe? They... why are they running from you?"

"Oh they broke a few laws, stabbed a bounty hunter, and—I don't know—has three elements? At least that's how many I've seen so far." She shrugged, casual, "Point and case is, people's a**es are going to get handed to them if they're not caught."

At this point, Zane was now alarmingly tense, almost as if he was ready to leap out of his tree and take off running.

April took notice and quickly gestured towards their right. "They went that way. Even deeper into the woods. Away. From us." They hoped the stranger would take that information and leave them alone.

The stranger in question smiled, moving to face the direction the again gestured to before pausing and glancing back, "You know, if it wasn't for the fact I don't care to deal with someone as weak as him, your friend there would be ain a heap of trouble." She smiled wider, showing off wickedly sharp teeth, "Maybe don't act downright terrified the next time you run into a bounty hunter? It'll do you some good."

And with that, they ran off, ducking into the nearby foliage.

After the sound of the leaves rustling faded away, April turned back to Zane, who was much paler than what should have been healthy for him.

Not trusting themselves to speak, they signed, Are you alright?

Zane raised trembling hands and signed out a shaky "yes".

Just then, a girl fell out of an overhanging tree branch. The second she touched the ground, she rolled to absorb her fall.

The the two pairs of eyes in the trees curiously followed the girl's movements. At this point in time, Zane was still practically merging with the tree, trying to stay as far out of sight as possible after the previous encounter.

The girl had reddish black hair, as well as a black tank top and green cargo shorts.

"Eesh, it's a lot harder leaping from trees than rooftops." she said.

She was about to keep running when she got a creepy feeling that someone was watching her.

"Anyone out there, or am I crazy?" she asked.

April twitched on the branch they were standing on, glancing between Zane and the new girl.

Before they could sign anything, a loose feather that they must have forgotten to store away fluttered down to the ground, right in front of the stranger.

The girl spotted the feather, and looked up from where it landed.

"Bounty hunters?" she asked. She cracked her knuckles. "This is gonna be fun!"

April rapidly shook their head. "We're not hunters!" they called down towards the girl. Then they blinked for a second, tilting their head.

"Why would you fight us? If we were, um, bounty hunters?"

"Because if I don't, you'll try and catch me." replied the girl.

Zane, in the meanwhile, had stopped attempting to meld with the tree and was now giving the girl an inquisitive look.

"So, if you're not bounty hunters, who are you?"

Zane signed something, but the leaves and branches of the tree obscured the girl's view of his hands.

April shifted uncomfortably. "We're just normal, human people. Not hunters. We're not really... we're a little like you I guess."

"Uh, sure." replied the girl. "I'm gonna go back into the city, wanna come with?"

Zane looked very uncertain about the suggestion, but turned to April for their answer.

"It'll be fine, as long as you stick with me, nobody's gonna catch you."

April carefully dropped to the floor. "Okay. We'll join you. I haven't... I'd like to see what it's like there."

Zane sighed, dropping down next to them.

Before they started walking, a rather important issue suddenly came up.

"You... aren't you worried that they'll stop us without a wristband?"

"Not if we take the rooftops."

Zane and April looked at each other, confused.

Rooftops?

A few minutes later, the avian and the silent wizard found themselves watching their new acquaintance leap and climb from rooftop to rooftop, doing flips over almost every gap.

Oh. Rooftops.

"Just another day in the life of Ryan Dashflame," she said. She turned back to her companions. "You coming or what?"

An awestruck Zane nodded eagerly before pausing to check the surroundings. When it became apparent that the coast was clear, he took a few steps back and ran to the edge of the building's roof and leapt across, clearing the gap. He turned to face April expectantly, bouncing on his feet eagerly.

“Flying would be so much easier,” April muttered to themself, following Zane’s movements. They landed a little too close to the edge and teetered for a second before regaining balance.

"See, it's fine," said Ryan.

Below the building that they were currently standing on, a pair of cold eyes laid upon them. Hm, isn't that the same girl I saw earlier?

Midway through a second leap, something in the corner of Zane's eye caught his attention. He turned his head to get a better view of the figure. On the ground, a meter or so away from the base of the building, was a wizard dressed in ice-themed robes eyeing the group with suspicion. Zane's eyes widened and he attempted to turn around and face April.

That was when he realized that he was still in the air.

The boy flailed frantically as the rooftop rapidly approached, before instinctively curling up and clumsily rolling along the roof as he made contact with it.

Zane quickly popped up and faced April, quickly signing a message to them.

Someone is watching us.

April landed on the roof right behind him, and risked a glance backwards, seeing the same figure.

"Hey, Ryan?" They called out, but she was too far ahead of the group. They sighed, and turned to Zane.

We better catch up.

As soon as Ryan stopped to see how the others were holding up, she realized that they were gone.

"Damn. Now I gotta go back," she muttered to herself, as she turned around and ran.

Unbeknownst to the two wizards down below, there was yet another figure observing them.

That figure was a rather tall n' spiky witch of sorts, though not much of her could be seen beside her head, as she was lurking behind the curve of the roof. She was, in a way, assessing those below, or simply figuring out if this place was as exciting as it seemed.

April sighed in relief as Ryan finally came back into earshot.

"We're being watched," they explained, tilting their head ever-so-slightly towards the right, signaling for her to look down at the blue-haired wizard staring at them.

"Ah, it's probably some bounty hunter. We'll be fine," said Ryan.

After watching them for a little while, he came to the senses that his existence has been acknowledged, his first instinct was to at least pull out his dagger, but resisted the urge to look violent, resting his hand on the handle of it.

Zane stared at Ryan, eyebrows raised in a mix of concern and the girl's lack thereof.

Ryan, on the other hand, was busy sticking her tongue out at the guy.

They're just hopping rooftops, nothing suspicious to do anything about. The icy figure thought, he released his grip on his dagger's handle, and began to walk to the bounty board, hoping there is a fugitive to catch as he was quite bored.

"Crap. You guys better run." said Ryan, spotting Damon walking away.

April tilted their head inquisitively. "Why... why should we run?"

"Yeah, I forgot to mention this, but I'm a wanted fugitive," said Ryan, nonchalantly.

April stared at her in disbelief. "Wanted? As in, on the board type of 'wanted'?"

"Yeah."

Merikki perked up a bit at that response, upon her spot upon the roofs. She grinned slightly, even if there was no one to see her.

Now this is getting interesting... she thought, though she winced as her right arm gave a bit of a twitch.

At the icy figure reached the bounty board, he scanned the flyers on it, looking for a fugitive to find. "Hey, Damon!" another random bounty hunter said. The ice wizard waved back, and went back to scanning the bounty board. Until he found one specific flyer, Ryan Dashflame, wanted multielemental.

He looked at the face, and realized it was the same person on top of the rooftops. Well, gotta earn money somehow. Damon said, he began to run back to the same place where he saw the three people, as he arrived at the spot, he started looking for crevices and cracks where a certain thin dagger could fit in.

"Looks like he came back," said Ryan, smirking.

Damon spotted a tiny crevice, tiny enough for a little dagger to fit in, so he unsheathed his dagger, and threw it into the crevice. He then yanked himself on the rope of his dagger, launching him upward and landing onto a rooftop several rooftops behind Ryan.

Zane jerked around, eyes widening when he saw the bounty hunter and yanked his scarf up to cover the lower half of his face.

"Relax, he's not gonna catch us," said Ryan, putting a hand on Zane's shoulder.

Latching onto another crevice on the next building, Damon yanked himself to the next rooftop. He then realized there was a much taller building to the right of him, so he latched onto a crevice on it, and propelled himself onto the wall.

Watching the bounty hunter slowly scale up the wall, Zane began to back up.

"No need to wimp out, I got this." said Ryan. She ran to the edge of the building they were on, and leapt across, almost falling, but managing to hang on to the edge. She pulled herself up, and started chuckling.

"Come and get me, buddy boy!" she said.

Latching onto the next crevice and the next, Damon quickly made his way to the rooftop Ryan was on. Finally, he made it, and jumped down onto the rooftop that Ryan was on.

"Took you long enough." said the traceur.

"Ryan Dashflame, as a wanted multielemental. Your bounty is 2,500 gold." Damon said, "You may either accept it and be turned in, or you may fight, and be frozen by a blizzard."

"I'd rather you eat my shorts." said Ryan.

"Your choice," Damon said, unsheathing his icicle sword.

Ryan's right fist lit up in flames, as she started chuckling.

Damon ran at Ryan, sword in hand, dagger in the other.

Ryan threw a fireball at Damon, before laughing.

Damon rolled under the fireball, dodging it completely, and summoned 3 tornadoes , Ryan was caught in one, was spun around for a few seconds and was flung up into the sky.

"This is nothing!" she yelled.

The second she landed, she rolled to absorb the fall, before running at Damon.

Damon quickly latched onto the edge of the rooftop, and pulled himself to the edge to get away from Ryan.

Merikki was watching it all with a wide eye. She wanted to jump in, but she wanted to hop in at the right time, and all flashy.

She poked her head further from her spot, but her foot slipped on a loose brick-or-whatever-they-were-called, causing her to flip over the roof and tumble down rather close to the two combatants. Talk about a lotta damage. She looked rather flat as she, well, fell flat on her face.

"Who the hell are you?" asked Ryan. "Another bounty hunter?"

"In pain-" she replied, trying to get up but having a ton of trouble doing that. She appeared to only be able to use her left arm, and her rather spiky but VERY stylish hat covered her face as she was squished flat.

"Need a hand?"

Taking advantage of Ryan being distracted, Damon latched onto a wooden barrel behind her, and pulled it towards him, knocking Ryan over.

Merikki, despite being in a considerable amount of pain, definitely rushed to Ryan's aid. Because obviously, someone doesn't know that you shouldn't throw barrels at people.

Damon suddenly heard a ton of ethereal peeps as he saw the strange witch trying to pick the splinters out of the fallen Ryan. "What the F[BEEP] was that f[BEEEEP]g barrel MADE of?!" she muttered. She glared at Damon, her hand on her hip. "What makes you think you can throw a f[BEEEP]g barrel at a lady like that?!" she demanded.

Ignoring that question, Damon simply said, "Helping the fugitive in any way makes you an apprentice, you are now also a target."

"Fugitive smewgitive," she replied, taking out the last splinter that she could find. She sighed, muttering something under her breath. "Does this mean that I have to stab you, now?" she asked, groaning at the obvious 'yes'.

"Dude, she just tried to help me, lay off." said Ryan, as she tried to stand up.

Damon shrugged it off, "I'm just doing my job."

"Well, don't," the witch joked. She jerked a little to the side, clutching her right shoulder. "Agh, not now-" she murmured, gritting her teeth.

"Man, I'm outta here. You're not even worth me kicking your @$$."

And so, Ryan walked away.

The witch stabbed a little something into her arm before whirling slightly on Ryan. "Wait, that's it-?" she asked, raising her good eyebrow. "He throws a barrel at you and you just walk away?"

"He's too much of a prick. He doesn't deserve to be beaten up by someone as awesome as me."

Merikki so wanted to yell PREACH at the top of her lungs, but she just gave an "ah, fair 'nuff" shrug. "Do you mind if I, ah, tag along to wherever you're going? We could be misfits together~!"

She hooked Ryan into an elbow hug with a wink. Charismatic, wasn't she?

"Sure." said the traceur. "I just need to find those two people I was leading into Lamplight, first."

She nodded, letting Ryan go out of her grasp. "Of course. The more the merrier, right?" she chimed, stretching her neck but making sure her right side of her face was still veiled by her hair. She also messed with the giant nail she just plunged into her arm, making sure it was intact, and offered for Ryan to lead the way.

April and Zane glanced up as Ryan approached the faraway rooftop they had escaped to.

"Who... who's your friend...?"

"Oh, I haven't introduced myself, have I?" she asked. "Silly me!"

She gave a bit of a twirl and a silly flashy pose. "The name's Merikki, at your service~!" she chimed. Her right arm gave a twitch and she promptly smacked it quickly.

April glanced uneasily at Merikki, but didn't comment on... whatever was going on with her.

"I'm... I'm April. He's Zane. Did you... lose the hunter?"

Merikki gave a hearty snort. "He threw a barrel at her and she just walked off like a champ," she said, patting Ryan on the back in congratulations.

"Anyways, Merikki's gonna be joining us now." said Ryan.

She gave a one-eyed wink. "If you'll have me, that is~"

April nodded slowly. "Okay. Um, Ryan, what... why did you need to come to Lamplight in the first place?"

"To be honest I kind of forgot." she said. After a second or two, she remembered.

"Oh yeah, I was gonna go grab some lunch."

On cue, Merikki's stomach growled. "Oh, hehe..." she chuckled sheepishly, blushing a little. Her blush was... a little purple. Hmm.

April shifted uncomfortably. "I mean... I'm not... I don't feel very hungry, but I can... I'll join you." They glanced at Zane, and unexpectedly snickered.

"Zane, you don't... your scarf is still up, in case you weren't aware."

"Great, then it's settled." said Ryan. "And I know the perfect place..."

Zane raised his hand to his face and lowered the scarf.

April tilted their head at Ryan. "Where are we going?"

"To the sewers to order a pizza." replied Ryan, clutching her phone.

"I can't tell if that's sarcasm or not," Merikki commented from nearby as she plunged another nail into her arm. "Still sounds tasty."

Zane's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

And so, within a few minutes, the four were standing under a storm drain.

"...and one large pepperoni." said Ryan, talking into her phone.

"So it wasn't sarcasm. Okay." Merikki just blinked in surprise.

She couldn't help but inspect the storm drain, her eye sort-of glowing in the dark. "How far down are we?"

"Close enough to the surface for the pizza guy to give us the pizzas, far enough so that they can't see me."

"So like... does he just leave them on the storm drain?" she asked, puzzled. Silly witch wasn't exactly grasping the concept.

"He slips it through the grate. I usually get it for free because he spends 30 minutes looking for the storm drain."

Merikki snorted, amused. "I can fetch it if he can't find it," she replied, patting her right shoulder, that arm veiled in nails and mystery. "Well, actually... that might not be a good idea. My nose isn't so good, so..."

Half an hour later, they heard the voice of a man above the storm drain.

"32 and an 8th... 32 and an 8th..." he said. "Where the heck is 32 and an 8th?!"

"You're standing on it dude."

Startled, the pizza guy jumped up, and dropped the pizzas. Ryan reached her hands through, and grabbed the boxes.

"Alright, here's lunch." said the traceur.

"Oddly specific numbers," Merikki mused as she just admired the pies. "Woah... why do those look super good...?" she asked, drooling slightly at specifically the pepperoni. She seemed quite the carnivore, with those sharp teeth.

April grimaced at the food. "I'll pass. Um." They glanced at Merikki nervously. "Just... I was... I've been... do you... are you also running from hunters?"

Merikki bit into a slice, groaning in delight at its taste, before swallowing and eyeing April. "Not... really? I thought I saw my face on the board, but I'm really here to help that one" -- she jerked her thumb at Ryan-- "not die. She's too interesting to die."

Zane, meanwhile, had picked up a slice of cheese pizza and took a small bite out of it. For the next few seconds, the wizard stood there and looked like he was having an epiphany.

Ryan noticed and smirked.

"That's why I always order the good stuff." she said, before laughing.

Merikki laughed along, though she kept her head level or lowered to better hide her face, which looked slightly odd. "Good stuff indeed," she chimed as she inhaled another slice.

April hesitantly glanced up at the manhole they'd climbed down, and then back at the feasting wizards.

"I'll... I think... I'm going to go up and just, um, explore for a bit." Turning to Zane, they signed, Do you want to join me or keep eating? I'll come back.

I'll come with, Zane signed with his free hand, finishing his slice.

"Have fun up there." said Ryan. "We'll save you a slice, or not, I don't know yet."

Zane paused, turned around, grabbed a second slice, then followed April.

When they reached the streets, April glanced down at the both of them, before signing, Do you think we'll pass as Physical wizards like this? There's not really any way for us to, um, get a wristband.

I hope so, Zane responded, glancing around anxiously.

April nodded, and they turned to look at the busy streets, filled with people ambling about. The avian raised their hands as if to sign something, then paused.

After a moment, they sighed, and continued.

I know you saw my...

A moment of hesitation.

You saw my wings this morning, Zane. And I saw you use Ice magic. I think we both have a couple of questions for each other that we should probably address.

They started heading towards the docks, glancing back as they waited for Zane to follow.

The dual gave April a hesitant nod, then continued to follow them.

When they reached the docks, April guided them towards a pile of crates, sitting down behind them.

So no one will see us Signing, they explained.

Zane followed them., sitting behind the crates as well.

You can ask first, he offered.

Alright. How did you avoid getting sealed? April snatched an orange from a nearby barrel and started peeling it once their hands were freed.

When I was younger, my dad hid me, Zane started. Well, until... The wizard's hands faltered for a moment. He quickly raised his hands again and resumed signing. I hide in Firefly Forest now. In the trees and away from any hunters.

The monsters are nice, though, he added.

April split their orange and handed half of it to Zane. I'm sorry for whatever happened to him. He didn't deserve it.

They stayed there in silence for a moment, before April slid a slice into their mouth. Your turn.

Zane sat still for a moment, thinking. After a brief moment, he raised his free hand. Why do you hide your wings? he asked, using a mix of signs and fingerspelling.

Take a guess. April snorted. Have you ever seen someone like me before?

If it means anything, I think they look cool.

April made a startled, chirp-like sound, and shoved the rest of their orange in their mouth. Looking away from Zane, they signed, Do you ever want to...

They paused, looking unsure.

Do you ever want to make them change it? The laws, I mean.

I always did. I still do, actually. But standing against the wardens? Everyone knows how that would end. Just another person gone without a trace. Zane silently placed another orange slice in his mouth.

April leaned against the crates, glancing at the orange peels thoughtfully. You’re probably right. But sometimes I wonder what life would look like if we weren’t all split up. I think everyone would be happier that way.

They turned back to Zane. Anyways, it’s your turn.

In the meanwhile, a black-haired kitsune wandered through the streets of Lamplight Town.

Lamplight was a curious place indeed, and yet that’s what drew the Kitsune out of his home. Of course, he had left for a few decades across the course of his life before this moment, but that didn’t mean each new residence evaded garnering new questions for the fox to search answers about. That’s what came with the pursuit of knowledge after all, a process he’s learned to develop in order to expand such a topic in his mind.

Tails brushed over the ground, the two swishing back and forth. Covered, sleeved-hands hung at his side, swaying back and forth as he moved with a bit of a skip to his step. His ears were perked up, investigating each and every noise he heard. So many things to learn, it made his mouth water in excitement! So much to see, hear, and so many to meet! Even if there happened to be little living around, there was bound to be plenty of the dead whom were attached enough for Ayla to interact with!

Ears twitching, he moved towards a curious source of noise. Geta sliding against the ground, he quickly moved towards such. Eyes wide, brimming with curiosity and excitement with tails wagging side to side. The first few bit of time he was here was going to prove to be interesting, he hoped.

Heels clicking over path as he walked, making no attempt to hide his presence with the occasional small greeting to those he passed (not all visible to the living.) What secrets hid here? What wisdom did he stand to gain? All the funner to grab the chance to come around.

His ears perked up when he slid past an alleyway, blinking rapidly. With a curious hum, he twisted on his heel as his tails wagged back and forth, arms held out at his side. Oh? Who were the ones hiding out?

He moved to approach, his footsteps silent and light.

Back in the sewer, a certain physical wizard was getting restless.

"I'm gonna go scout above, in case if they're on our tails," Merikki offered, waving a hand and hopping up onto the storm drain vent-thing without much of a further response.

She poked her head out from the storm drain, her head sorta just ramming into it to prop it open. She scanned the general alleyway, her eyes locking on the black of... something, which made the young witch very curious. She thought it wise to not move from her spot though, even though she really, REALLY wanted to.

She just then realized that the sound of the collision of her head to the metal definitely could've alerted something, causing her to quietly swear at the revelation.

Just before he could ask April another question, a distant metallic thud and quiet, approaching footsteps caught Zane's attention and he immediately tensed up.

Ayla’s ears twitched, alerting him to the movement. He swiveled once more to stare down the witch directly after approaching closer, blinking. He tilted his head, hands behind his back while his tail swayed side to side. Did he say anything? No.

At first, of course. He only allowed a moment of awkward silence before he spoke with a wide smile.

”Hello there!”

Merikki flinched, which caused the storm drain lid to thunk on the witch's head again. "Agh, f[BEEP]..." she mumbled, rubbing her head. She gave a slight wave with her shoulder, since her good hand was too busy trying to ease the damage she was just dealt.

What an interesting creature... she couldn't help but think, even as there was a slight tear in her eye. She probably had a concussion now.

Ayla perked up, frowning. He reached out a hand to hold it up, his free hand on his knees. He laughed, a playful yip escaping him.

”How clumsy! Did I truly scare you that bad?”

He tilted his head, tails wagging side-to-side.

She ended up punting(ish) the lid off, and it kinda just blasted off like a team we might know. She ended up taking Ayla's hand, she was getting slightly cramped in the cylinder.

The kitsune immediately noticed that she only used her left arm as she gave her thanks to him. "I'm fine, you were just... unexpected..."

”Of course I was! I simply didn’t expect to see a young one like you right here!”

Ayla helped her out with surprising ease (whether that was the intention or not, she was out.) He clasped his hands together over his chest, ears relaxed as he grinned.

“Where are my manners? I’m Ayla Fableshade!”

Ayla bowed.

Merikki gave a slight spin with her bow, giving a curtsy, because this little fox was so polite! She giggled at her very unusual show of respect. "Ah, I don't exactly have that sorta fancy last name," she replied, rubbing her hand on the back of her neck.

”Ah, do not fret! If anything, I’ve been around a long time, so I’ve been bound to gain such eventually! I’m not exactly the type of lonely wanderer to remain unknown!”

Ayla snickered, standing up straight as his tails swished. He had a wide smile on his face, showing off his fangs (though not in a predatory manner.) He held out his hand.

“Is there not a second of you around?”

"...No, there isn't," she replied, silently cursing her hesitation on the answer. But it was natural.

She was with a supposed fugitive, and she didn't know if Ayla would turn the two of them in, considering that and Merikki's uncertainty on if she was on the board herself or not. She attempted a friendly smile, but it ended up more spooky if anything.

“Silly one! There’s no reason to lie! My senses certainly don’t!”

Ayla’s expression remained entirely wholesome and genuine as he smiled, grabbing Merikki’s hands in his as he stared at her.

”Why so nervous?”

When he reached for her right arm, she literally slid back, her good hand on her right shoulder protectively. She quickly (failed) to amend her outburst with a slightly upright stance. "N-Nervous? I'm not! Ah- you're nervous! RIght-"

Ayla seemed curious, raising an eyebrow but pulled his hands back with that maintained grin. His hands were behind his back, laughing once more.

”How sweet! Trust me, I have no malice in my intent, just simple curiosity! I am just a traveler wandering around to learn, I do not often dabble in the affairs of the places I visit. Besides, you are so young! I am simply a little worried since I saw you in the sewer and such, where someone your age should not be!”

"The world is cruel like that," Merikki retorted, having to plunge another nail into her right arm again as it twitched. "It's hard to trust anyone these days, so..." She vaguely gestured to the sewer with a bit of distaste. She shrugged. "You seem... okay."

Just then, a head popped out from the storm drain.

”Yo, Rikki, you want the last slice of pepperoni?” asked Ryan.

Well, that's a new nickname, Merikki thought, blinking, before nodding. "I'll be there in a sec," she called back, waving her good hand. She bid the kitsune goodbye, before jumping down the sewer again, hopefully leaving the kitsune confused and curious.

On cue, the storm drain lid that was kicked to the sky earlier came flying down and stuck the landing on the pothole. It was still loud, but, it was cool, for sure.

A white-haired wizard in a lavender hat and green cloak, who had been quietly reading nearby, gave a loud yelp as the drain lid clattered violently to the ground.

"What the hell?!" The snowy-haired teen cried, panic evident on ink's features. "That could have killed somebody!"

April flinched upon hearing a loud sound, curling up behind the crates and tugging Zane's shoulder so he'd hide from the commotion as well.

Zane mimmicked April, letting the crates hide him from view.

Voices could be heard behind the crates, along with a little bit of bickering, and April tugged Zane's sleeve again.

We should just go back to Firefly, this town is too dangerous.

They paused.

Also, I'm going to need to unbind my wings soon, and the forest is the only safe place.

I'm fine with that, Zane responded. Just as April began to sneak away, Zane tapped their shoulder. What about Ryan?

April hesitated, before shaking their head. She has Merikki and she has pizza. It'll be fine.

Zane had an uncertain look on his face, but nodded anyway, raising his scarf to cover the lower half of his face as he followed April along the outskirts of Lamplight Town.

They eventually reached Firefly Forest, hopping over the weak wooden fence that separated it from Lamplight Town. April sighed in relief when they entered the cover of the leaves, and cleared their throat. "It's still your turn, y'know."

The wizard looked at the surroundings briefly, then lowered his scarf. Why did you choose to come here, especially without a wristband? Zane asked. You're clearly not a Plant elemental.

April leaned against a tree, careful of where their wings were bound. "Skywatch... isn't a safe place. I've done... I'm not the best person, and, well..."

They stared at the sky, looking lost.

"I guess that I've heard a lot of stories about this place. I've heard that it's safe for people like... us."

Zane looked up at the skies and treetops for a moment, then looked back down at April. Well, so long as you avoid the bounty hunters, he signed. He then gestured to the avian. Your turn again.

April glanced at the ground. Have you met anyone else that's like us before me and Ryan? I can't have been the first fugitive you've seen.

I've seen and met a few. But thanks to the bounty hunters, most didn't stick around long. One person did, though. 'Timothy Earthdrifter'. Said he wasn't from here. He did use ice magic, though, so he probably came from Shiverchill. He was the one who taught me the icy mist thing I used earlier today. Eventually, the bounty hunters caught on to him and he left without a trace.

Zane turned his face toward the distant snow-covered tip of Shiverchill Mountain.

Hope he's doing well, the dual added.

April stared at the mountain along with Zane, face scrunched in thought. After a long moment of silence they cleared their throat again.

"It's um... your turn."

Zane scrunched his face in thought for a moment. What was life like in Skywatch? he eventually signed.

April grimaced. "It's... I'm probably the wrong Storm elemental to ask. My life wasn't quite... It wasn't quite the same as a normal resident's." They stared at the ground, wondering whether to elaborate. After some time, they glanced back at Zane.

"I was probably one of the few people in Skywatch that ever got to be exposed to other elements, although not uh... not for very long. Never got to explore much of the area though, since I was kind of confined to my job. If it weren't for a lot of things, I think Skywatch would be my favourite place to fly. All that high altitude and open space..." They trailed off, staring at the canopy above before continuing.

"Like you said about Firefly, the monsters up in Skywatch are pretty friendly too, but that might be only to me because um... because I'm a... I'm..."

Zane watched on curiously as they struggled to finish their sentence, eventually choking out a small, "because I'm a monster too."

Zane's expression softened. Nothing's wrong with being a monster. Unlike most of us, they're great. They don't hunt each other down. They are kind and nice to be around. Like you are.

He sighed. I don't know what people have said to or about you, but you're more than what you're giving yourself credit for. You don't have to put yourself down all the time.

April curled in on themself, not looking up. "You don't... you don't know what I've done to-to people. I'm not... I'm not nice. Or good."

Zane tilted his head. You've been nice to me and Ryan, and we've only just met.

"Well, when I met you guys, we weren't in Skywatch. That makes things different." April sighed.

How so?

April laughed, but it sounded a little more pained than a normal laugh should have been. "I was... I would have killed you, if we were in Skywatch. That's the difference."

Zane raised his hands, about to sign something, but then lowered them in reconsideration.

It was then when a certain Bounty Hunter silently passed through the foliage- silent, nearly spectral, as though he were badly photoshopped into vision. He barely looked like he was breathing, but the unmistakable eyes of orbital laser-focus proved he was very clearly alive.

Given his direction, he was pursuing the same direction as the blue-haired girl the mute and the avian had encountered before; the visible tear in his cloak a clear indicator of who exactly that "gray person" the cat girl mentioned had stabbed.

April went still, some distant animalistic instint inside them bringing forth the feeling of prey, but they just couldn't identify the danger. The forest around them was as peaceful and quiet as ever. They weren't even sure if the threat was directed at them.

Just to be careful, they lowered their voice.

"...Sorry for making this so dark. It was... It was my turn, wasn't it?" April asked a rather confused-looking Zane. He nodded slowly.

"What do you think that person was doing here in the forest earlier? The one in the hood? They looked like they were being chased by the other woman but I... I don't know if we should try to help."

The blue-haired lady said that they had at least three elements, stabbed a bounty hunter, and broke some laws, so they have to be a fugitive, Zane signed.

After a moment of thought, Zane raised his hands again. I'd like to help them, but...

Zane slowly lowered his hands as the grim possibility of such an endeavor set in.

"Right..." April sighed. "It's just... everything's so unfair. I'm still kind of new to this whole fugitive thing, but even before that..."

They tilted their head back and let their earmuffs slip off, absently staring at the bark of the tree.

"...Maybe we should help them. It would be three of us against one wizard. We could... we could fight back, for once."

Absently, they stretched out their ear-wings, before they realized that they were exposed.

"Um-you don't mind if they're out, right?" They asked sheepishly, ready to pull the head accessory back up.

Before Zane could formulate a response, something made him stop dead. A sudden chill, the sensation of being watched, cold and clear as steel. Just as gray and grim as its color, too.

He only barely shifted his head when he came to notice the hooded figure in gray and green balancing on only their toes, perfectly perched in the branches of the tree behind April. What was even more unsettling was their posture, telling that this person was only visible because they wanted to be.

How long had they been there? How much had they heard?

Zane's pupils shrunk, and the boy became very, very tense, eyes still transfixed on the figure in the tree.

A pair of piercing emerald eyes suddenly flicked towards Zane from under the shadow of the hood, making full eye contact with the mute. A slight posture shift saw the faintest shape of a staff displace the edge of the stranger's cloak, though it seemed the figure was barely even trying to hide it.

Vines tore their way out of the ground, upturning dirt and stone as they separated the cloaked individual from the two fugitives. While the rapidly growing foliage continued to obstruct the spy's vision, the responsible wizard wasted no time in grabbing the avian's arm and booking it.

The vines suddenly split after being cleaved by a blade of Earth-elemented composite materials, falling to the forest floor in fractions of moments as the stranger gave chase. Every aspect of the forest only served to accelerate their pursuit, gaining rapidly; a clear sign of their native element.

Zane quickly took a sharp right turn behind a tree, with April following a literal arm's length behind.

And with that, the two had seemingly disappeared, with a thick, green vine hanging from a branch being the only indicator of the duo's movement to the treetops. Leaves suddenly began to rustle, easily trackable evidence of their attempts to escape via treetop.

Only, there was one problem.

Rustling suddenly began to emerge from multiple trees at once, forming false travel paths as pairs of blurred silhouettes bolted from tree to tree all over the place.

The assailant seemed to slow down for a fraction of a second before their footsteps went dead silent once more, the rumble of Earth and creaking of vines and trees the only indicator of their magically-augmented movement as they quickly deducted which of these silhouettes was the real target through a state of heightened focus. Through the slightest variances in reaction to stray particles of dirt or contact with leaves, the spy quickly seemed more and more like the Bounty Hunter they truly were as they figured out which shapes to lock onto.

With a sweep of their staff, the stranger conjured walls of rock and a network of vines, attempting to enclose the escapees.

Cyan essence condensed in the air, forming a large, six-pointed, rapidly spinning snowflake that wasted no time in slamming into the vines, intending to cut through them.

And it shattered.

For an attack of a notable size, it seemed to lack quite a bit of power behind it.

The pieces of shattered ice promptly rushed towards the bounty hunter, kicking up dirt and leaves. Cold mist began accompanying the shards and swirled around the hunter, decreasing the spy's visibility and drowning out any sounds they could have heard.

The escaping duo quickly took the opportunity to climb down from the tree, run out of the makeshift trap, and continue their escape on foot.

Their pursuer quickly adapted by heading in the direction of the trap, regardless of visibility, before slamming their staff into the ground. Roots stretched into overgrowth, shaking the vicinity in an attempt to knock the Bounty Hunter's prey off-balance while simultaneously dispersing the mist.

April stumbled from the pseudo-earthquake, tripping over themself and hissing as they landed on the ground. Zane immediately turned back to help them up, and they got up to start running again, but that one small slip up used up what little lead they had on the hunter.

That loss would be critical.

With another sweep of the staff, the overgrown roots entangled with each other, forming a nearly airtight wall in front of the pursued. With another sweep, the crowns of the linked trees grew similarly, blocking upwards escape, and a final slam closed off the arboreal dome. The rumbling just outside was a clear indicator of the complete sealing of the chamber in a layer of compacted earth, and soon a small doorway cleared itself opposite the pair; the only light source, casting the shadow of the Bounty Hunter as they advanced into the room.

Zane took his backpack off and dug around in it. He pulled his Sword of Earth out of it and began clumsily slashing at the thick vines, with no notable result.

The wizard's breathing quickened, and he swung the blade more frantically, but to no avail.

He whipped around, eyes wide. Large spikes of ice tore out of the ground, launching themselves at the bounty hunter, only to collectively miss.

Zane was now hyperventilating, wildly glancing around for any sort of lifeline. Wide eyes snapped towards the backpack on the ground. The boy dropped to the ground and drove his hand into the backpack and yanked it out, immediately chucking something at the bounty hunter.

It was a firework.

Zane Greenshard had just thrown a firework at a bounty hunter.

A short while ago, a certain, cat-eared figure stopped, their ears perking at hearing the sound of something moving in the treetops. Their gaze fixed on the forest behind them, then they glanced forward, the scent of their "prey"—so to speak—still wafting in the air.

Eventually they sighed, starting to run in the direction of the commotion, arriving just in time to smell their bounty hunter companion be in point blank of a firework, traces of previously casted Ice Magic immediately overwhelming the bluenette.

"...idiot."

And with that, just as they were about to continue in their interrogation, a blast of cyan knocked the green ombre hunter straight out of the tree, tearing a hole through compact earth and vine and leaving the man sprawled on the floor, the caster soon standing right over the mess.

"Didn't you get the message earlier? They have nothing to do with the fey so back off the civilians, won't you? You've really f**ked up if they started throwing fireworks at you." She promptly bonked him. Aggressively. In total indifference to the firework that set off a short distance away.

Well, she had to get the idiot out of his state somehow, and distractions wouldn't help.

April let out a dignified 'eep' at the sudden interruption, quickly flipping their earmuffs back over their ear-wings. They glanced nervously at the feline woman and the hunter, stepping closer to Zane.

The Bounty Hunter crossed his arms as he got up, hood falling to his shoulders while he dusted them off as he raised an eyebrow.

"You cannot tell me that these two aren't at least halfway suspicious."

He jerked his thumb towards the avian and the mute, trying to point out the fact that not only were they discussing the hooded fugitive in broad daylight, but he had personally seen the boy cast two different elements, along with the fact that... wing-ears, he tried to describe, weren't exactly traits native to the area. Nor did he see any wristbands, which didn't make the situation any better.

"Look, I interrogated those two earlier, and the magic earlier was me, if that's what caused you to be suspicious. Bruentte's an Earth user, doesn't need a wristband in their native area, and their companion is a physical." The teen moved to give the Bounty Hunter some breathing room, "They've just had the rougher end of life and reacted badly to your presence. If it means anything, they literally gave me information to help with your current target. Although that information won't be worth anything if you idle and let the trail go cold."

The Bounty Hunter sighed as he undid the remainder of the interrogation dome, giving a semi-apologetic, semi-suspicous glance to the duo.

"Name's Luke Darkshade," he introduced himself. "I've got a few snacks and potions in my bag if the chase roughed you up. Otherwise," he paused as he turned to the bluenette, "I'd like to hear about what exactly this info was."

"They were the last ones to spot the Ivory and gestured me in the right direction. I went ahead until I picked up their scent before doubling back for you," she replied with a shrug, gesturing vaguely in the said direction with her tail.

Luke nodded as he brushed dirt and leaves from the fur of his outfit. "Lead the way, then."

She promptly moved to do so, darting off at a speed reasonable enough for the bounty hunter to follow. Yet she didn't do so before casting a small smile in the direction of the two, once again making it questionable regarding who's side she was on.

Taking in deep breaths, Zane clenched and unclenched clammy hands. He looked down at his backpack, closed it, picked it up, and put it on, fidgeting with the strap nervously.

April exhaled once the hunters were out of earshot, turning to the nervous wizard next to them.

"Zane..."

He didn't seem to hear them at first, and they sighed.

"This is going to sound really, really stupid, but I'm kind of tired of how it seems to be every fugitive for themself. It... it never helps anyone. It doesn't work."

They started fidgeting with their own fingers, glancing at the lumps of earth that formerly held up a short-lived interrogation room.

"And now, I know I should be grateful, but... I don't want a hunter to... help me. It's... that's not how it should work."

It went quiet for a long moment, and then April laughed awkwardly. "Sorry, I'm rambling, forget it."

Zane stared at the ground, fiddling with the strap of his bag. Eventually, he looked up at April and snapped his fingers, drawing their attention.

You're right, he signed.

April blinked in surprise. "You... agree?"

Zane nodded.

"Oh. Um."

April glanced in the direction the hunters had gone in and sighed. "I think... I want to follow them. And stop them. Especially since it's my fault that the multielemental is... going to get found."

They turned around, meeting Zane's eyes. "If you want to... you can come with me?"

I'll come, he signed. Should we ask Ryan and Merikki to help us?

"That.. would be a good idea." April shifted uncomfortably. "Only problem is that I need to unbind my wings soon and well... I'd rather they not know about that."

That's fine. But how are we going to stop them? That bounty hunter nearly caught us easily the first time, and now he has the cat lady with him.

"Well... it's three against two, right? The multielemental probably wasn't interested in fighting one on one, and definitely not interested with two people against them, but if they see that they have people on their side... they might fight with us."

April picked up a branch, studying at the relatively sharp tip. Zane backed away just a little.

"I can also... if my wings are free, I might be able to get us out of there if things get rough? Not for very long since I've never really carried anyone, let alone two people, but I should get us to at least somewhere safe. Plus, if we're off the ground, the cat lady would lose the scent trail."

Zane turned his head in the direction the long-gone bounty hunters had headed, then faced April again. Do you, by any chance have an idea on how to figure out where they went? the dual asked.

"I could... fly up and try to scout forwards? Although, hold on-" They quickly pulled out their bag and turned to Zane, spiraling their index finger in a turn-around motion.

Zane promptly spun around, his back now facing April.

April carefully pulling off the binding tape, grimacing as they stretched out their wings. Feathers fell to the ground as they pulled out an identical tunic, with a hole crudely cut out in the back.

After they finished the process, April tapped Zane on the shoulder. "You can turn around now."

After the wizard turned around, his expression quickly shifted into one of awestruck admiration.

With their unbound wings curled around themselves, magestic gold feathers glinted in the light, giving way to bright sky blue feathers further down. Where a human's ears would have been, had emerged a pair of small ear-wings, with the same shining gold to blue feather color arrangement as the avian's larger wings.

April cleared their throat, snapping the dual from his amazement.

"I'm going to fly up now, um, don't go anywhere?"

With that, they flapped their wings once, twice, and then shot up into the trees, weaving through the branches and leaves before breaking through the canopy. Gusts of wind followed their liftoff, scattering leaves across the forest floor.

April slowed down once they were just above the trees, not even bothering to suppress the smile that rose up at the feeling of wind against their wings. They glided in circles over a wide radius, and then stopped to hover once they saw a flash of movement within the trees.

Two figures were darting over tree roots and heading westwards.

Found you.

A feeling of triumph rose in their veins, and they started to head back to Zane, but hesitated.

I could just dive down and kill them with enough speed... It would be so easy...

The avian dug their nails into their arm. "I'm not here for that anymore." They muttered to themself, before turning around and making their way back to the dual, plummeting through the trees and catching themselves right before they hit the ground just to see Zane panic a little.

The dual had, in fact, panicked a little, as he was now facedown on the ground, arms stretched forward after a frantic lunge to catch the avian that he thought was falling.

He would have missed, regardless.

April laughed, leaning down and holding out a hand to help Zane up.

"They're currently going west, and they're not too far away, from what I can tell. But we should hurry anyways."

Zane lifted his head up and grabbed April's hand, letting them help him up. Once he got to his feet, he quickly brushed blades of grass off of his shirt. Lead the way, he signed.

April and Zane sprinted west, only slowing down when the brush underneath started to look disturbed, as if the hunters were no longer concerned about hiding their tracks.

A sign of pursuit.

The two of them went still as they ground faintly shuddered, not unlike a certain mim-earthquake that had occurred earlier. The sound of spells being fired reached their ears–or ear-wings–from the distance, and if April squinted their eyes, they could see small flashes of movement between the trees.

"They're close." The avian breathed, turning back to Zane.

Zane nodded in understanding. So how exactly are we going to handle this? he asked. Are we going to stay hidden and use spells on the hunters or are we going to do something else?

“We want the person they’re chasing to help us too, so staying hidden might not work.” April sighed, glancing at the trees above. An idea took shape in their head.

“We could take the high route and try to drop down once we’re near the multielemental so we can surprise the hunters…?”

The cat lady will probably hear us moving in the trees again, Zane pointed out.

"Right..." April sighed. "Do you have any ideas?"

Zane scrunched up his face in thought for a moment. What if we still approach from the trees, but make noise in a different direction, or maybe all directions?

"That could work." April replied, before switching to sign language. We don't have a lot of time to think on it, anyways.

In a flash of blue and gold, they flew up to one of the branches overhead, glancing down with a poorly concealed smirk. You coming?

Of course I am, he signed with a smile. A vine lowered down from a tree above, and the wizard grabbed it, allowing it to lift him up into the tree. He perched himself on a branch near April, green essence laced with a few cyan particles swirling around his fingers. Ready?

April grinned. You bet.

Branches creaked and leaves rustled as the duo leapt from tree to tree. As a cold wind seemingly coming from Shiverchill Mountain swept through the area, vines latched onto the branches of surrounding trees and swayed them back and forth, masking the sounds indicating the duo's approach from behind with slightly louder creaking and leaf rustling.

Below the canopy, a certain "cat lady's" ears perked, swiveling slightly to pick up the direction of the noise. She frowned at first, before casting a glance in the duo's direction, but quickly looked away, seeming to not prioritize their presence.

Meanwhile, the Bounty Hunter remained focused on his most urgent target, the elements of the surrounding forest manipulated as best he could as to ensure that the target wouldn't escape- or at least, not without his knowledge. His body language offered no clues as to if he had noticed the duo in the trees, but given the way the shaking ground blurred his visage, precious few clues would be given in the way of that.

In the trees, Zane's eyes were wide with alarm, caused by both the bluenette's glance in his and April's direction and the bounty hunter's skillful manipulation of the surrounding forest. Why, even for a moment, did we think we had a shot at this?

April placed a comforting wing over Zane's back, almost startling him off the branch.

It's okay, they signed. We can still do it. They don't know who we are, just that we're there.

Zane took a deep breath. You're right. Are you ready?

April nodded and the two of them continued forwards on the trees, following the sounds of the chase.

Eventually, April saw movement between the trees to their left and halted on the branch they had landed on. Zane glanced at them in confusion.

Running parallel to the duo, on the ground, was a hooded figure, no doubt the same one they had run into earlier in the day. From just behind the fugitive, April could see the vines shooting forwards in the same patterns that occurred when they were being chased with Zane not too long ago. Their shoulders tensed once they noticed that the hunters were catching up to the fugitive, and then their eyes widened as a wall made of earth and roots blocked the figure in their path, giving the bounty hunter and cat lady enough time to reach the multielemental.

Without really thinking, April dove down, landing in front of the fugitive with their wings flared out protectively and eyes narrowed at the pursuers.

From behind them, the fugitive shook their head and spat out a feather, looking reasonably disoriented, given that they had just been smacked in the face by a wing.

Zane whipped his head towards April's new location, eyes wide in shock. Blinking his eyes, the wizard snapped back into reality, turning his head to look at the bounty hunter and the bluenette standing next to the hunter. For a brief moment, the dual hesitated, rethinking his choices. Zane violently shook his head, shaking away the accompanying thoughts too. He couldn't–no, wouldn't abandon April just because he was scared. And with that, the wizard leaped out of the tree and landed on the wall behind the hooded fugitive, warily eyeing the figure's two pursuers.

The bounty hunter remained sharp and focused, stopping for only a moment before resuming his attack. The wall of earth began to creak, and with a flick of his staff, stabbing roots ejected outwards from it in an instant.

In response, a defensive wall of roots jutted out of the ground in front of the original, deflecting the roots upwards just before they could reach their mark. Zane let out a breath of relief, green essence still swirling around raised arms.

This relief was short-lived, however, as the dual could practically feel the glare their cloaked figure was shooting him under their hood. With a quite aggressive motion of their hand, ice now doubled the makeshift barricade to prevent the bounty hunter from simply manipulating the roots again.

Zane raised his scarf over the lower half of his face and climbed down the wall, looking away from the hooded figure uncomfortably. He shuffled next to April, seeming to wish he could shrink further into the green scarf.

April shifted a wing to comfort him again, and glanced back at the figure, awkwardly clearing their throat. "We're, um, here to help. I'm April. He's Zane."

Zane's eyes drifted towards the hunters, and upon noticing their presence again, another wall of roots and entangled vines quickly lurched out of the ground, dividing the two groups. The wizard waved his hand horizontally, and the wall quickly froze over.

The cloaked figure cast a glance at Zane's newly erected wall, but provided no response to April asides from a huff, before staring at the icy wall with an air of...anticipation. They moved their wrist in a snapping motion—fingers outstretched—and questionably, a fan appeared out of essense, pastel feathers causing a certain avian to perk in slight hostility. Again, they paid no regard to the two, still staring in the direction of the icey wall.

As to fulfill what they had been waiting for, cyan and green shone at the same time, effectively splitting the wall as the persuing felinoid and Bounty Hunter made their move.

Even with the hood, both parties could've sworn the figure smirked.

They abruptly moved the fan diagonally causing a slash of wind to emerge, moving rapidly toward the two authority figures, with the Earth user of the two summoning mass of roots, which the wind cut through continuously before coming to a stop.

The Bounty Hunter only allowed himself a moment's shock- it was all he could afford, after all. Within moments Luke was making his next play, testing multidirectional attacks by attempting to bind the target with a circle of surrounding roots springing up from below.

With another movement of the fan, wind effectively formed a shield about the multielemental. It didn't stop the roots from forming their cage, but it did allow for them to have movement room, and with yet another slicing motion of the fan, the winds increased to a strength to which they tore through the roots.

As the roots fell away, a barrage of rocks began pummeling in the general direction of the hooded fugitive from as many sides as the attacker could manage.

At this point, the figure glanced back at Zane, as if to indicate a 'Seriously?' in regards to the lack of assistance, before—with their free hand—summoning green essense and beginning to deflect the stones, occasionally using stronger bursts of wind to essentially play pinball with them.

The rocks crumbled as the bounty hunter clenched his fist, fragments sharpening into shapes not unlike stakes before encircling the target like a gray, floating serpent. The mass of spikes quickly rushed towards the enemy, with the bounty hunter straining to maintain fine control.

Roots burst out of the forest floor, knocking the stone projectiles out of the air before retreating back into the ground and dragging the pieces of stone with them.

More vines lurched out of the ground and kicked up massive amounts of dirt, dust, and leaves in around the bounty hunter and the unimpressed "cat lady"—an attempt by Zane to hinder the duo's vision so he, April, and the irritable hooded figure could escape.

The bounty hunter responded by waving his staff to the side, a green glow forming around the diversion before throwing the forest bits in opposite directions.

Meanwhile, the "cat lady" shot the said hunter an annoyedly look as she found herself shaking the dirt out of her fur, ears perked to make of note of their opponent's movement.

The newly formed trio had taken to dashing through the forest as fast as they could and as far from the duo as possible.

The bounty hunter was quick to follow, hurling a composite mass of rock towards the trio while tethering to it using branches protruding from the staff. While somewhat turbulent, the method proved effective, to close the distance. After retrieving his staff from the rock, the projectile continued flying, exploding against the ground where it landed in a burst of green essence as the bounty hunter relinquished control over the components.

The ensuing cloud of dust parted with a glint of sunlight, soon revealing the source to be a jagged blade of metal and stone, crescent shape protruding from the overgrown core of Luke's staff.

The felanoid, on the other hand, was beginning to seem quite annoyed as she dropped out of a nearby tree to join her companion, seeming to have decided to avoid the shenanigans rather than force her way through it.

Zane spared a quick glance back at the duo, and green essence quickly sparked into existence, snaking up his arms. The dual raised his hands and thrust them in the general direction of the cat lady and bounty hunter. About half of the leaves on ten different nearby trees suddenly detatched from their branches, suspended by green essence. And with some notably loud rustling, the leaves rushed towards the trio's pursuers in a wide-ranging attack, smacking into them and getting caught on their faces, clothes, and hair.

At this, a certain felanoid seemed quite irate, snapping her arms forward so they would cross into a horizontal "X," cyan essence rapidly spreading in the immediate area around her and her companion. Fleck-like drops of seemingly harmless mist drifted through the air, but as the leaves passed through, it quickly became clear that it was not mist, but freezing rain, encasing every item with ice and allowing the ice user to hurl each and every item out of the way, including the leaves, much to her fur's convenience.

Following mild shivering and brief glances back to see their increasingly agitated pursuers, the trio picked up in speed. Large patches of ice materialized right underneath the feet of the duo in tow, with the only indicator of their cause being fading cyan wisps between their target and Zane.

The hunter refused to slow down for any reason that the trio cast, strategically forming roots before letting them retract to create a path at the pursuing duo's footfalls unaffected by the ice.

The idea of the felanoid falling flat on her back was amusing in itself, but unfortunately for the trio, they forgot the "cat lady" lived up to her name down to the class.

Let's say she had no trouble gaining traction on the ice, especially with her own magic.

More and more ice patches appeared of wildly varying sizes, their placement becoming more and more unpredictable and chaotic.

And suddenly, a very large section of the ground froze underneath the trio. A feeling of dread instantly shot through the escapees as they lost all traction and then their footing as they instinctively tried to avoid the large tree they were sliding straight towards.

But luckily for them, they didn't crash into it.

Unfortunately for their pursuers, on the other hand, the trio had just... disappeared.

Meanwhile, Ryan and Merikki were still in the sewers, chatting and laughing.

"And then, his voice went all high pitched, and he said, 'I must carry on the family bloodline'!" said Ryan.

Merikki messed with one of the rats that were just chilling in the sewers, having a jolly good ol' time. For how generally spooky Merikki looked, the witch seemed at peace.

Her hat was off by Ryan, letting her ashy white hair just flow down. She was just way too focused by the silly chonky rat.

“Hey, you wanna get outta here and have some fun?” asked Ryan.

Merikki shrugged, wincing as her right shoulder unexpectedly shrugged too. "Maybe..." she said. "I'm tired of sewer smell, but what's gonna happen to you? I'm not the strongest guardian in the world."

She was pretty potent, Merikki was just being bashful. And somewhat truthful.

“I’ll be fine, I’ve been striking out on my own since I was…”

Ryan paused to count her fingers.

“7, and I’m still alive.”

"Fair enough," she replied, stretching as she got up. "Where would you wanna go, though?"

“We could go to my place.”

Merikki literally jumped a little. "You have a place?" she asked, amazed.

“Kind of. You’ll see.”

"Lead on, then~" Rikki chimed, getting a little giddy.

And so, Ryan and Merikki crawled out of the sewers, as Ryan led her friend in a random direction.

Soon enough, they reached what seemed to be an AC cooling tower, but with a door.

Inside, instead of AC stuff, there was a couch, a box of firecrackers, a skateboard, some posters, and an old TV.

"Welcome to my pad." said Ryan.

Merikki conked her head on the doorway, recoiling to rub her poor head. "Aagh..." she mumbled, now unsure if she could actually fit.

"Pretty sweet, huh?"

Stumbling in, Merikki nodded. She was still rubbing her head, and through her now-ruffled hair Ryan could see a bit of the scarring that her hair hid.

"Pretty neat, to be entirely honest~" she chimed, admiring it all and Ryan's perseverance.

"It's amazing that this place hasn't been discovered by those bounty hunters yet." Ryan chuckled.

"It is one of those places that one wouldn't think to look at," she replied, crouching down so she was around Ryan's height.

"So... I've been meaning to ask... Why do you cover your right arm?"

Merikki was silent for a while. "It's... a sight that no one should see," she answered quite vaguely. She clutched her shoulder impulsively.

"What, is it oozing blood from every pore?"

"Oh, gods, no, I'd genuinely cry if that was the case," she chuckled, setting her hat down. "Do you really wanna know?"

"Sure."

She got up and made a move to undo the top bit of her robe-like things, which was now clear that it was more of a top-piece more than anything. Underneath was a vest of sorts, protective but didn't have sleeves.

It was... really a grotesque thing. It looked like it was both full of life and a husk, if that were even possible. It was a violent dark shade of purple, and Ryan could see that purple climbing to Merikki's neck. It ended in something almost hand-like, but it was more or less a set of 5-7 talons than fingers. It... ironically enough was spitting blood, but it was minor and more of a reaction to the sudden unveiling.

"Whoa... Metal!" said Ryan.

The arm literally huffed at Ryan, and felt like it was giving a theoretical glare at her.

"The [BEEP] do you mean metal-?" she asked, and that beep caused the arm to pulse up again as she flung it to the side for pose reasons.

"It's, like, all purple and stuff, like it's from a monster movie. It's pretty cool."

"You're not, like, frightened at all?" she asked, genuinely shocked.

Usually, people called Merikki a monster and fled, sometimes even a request to the authorities that made the witch flee the area.

"I've seen freakier stuff."

"I'm not even gonna try and be spooky with it, because I don't wanna get blood everywhere," Merikki huffed, crossing her arms.

With it unveiled, she seemed to be using her right arm as if it were normal now. Sorta.

Just then Ryan had a very very bad idea.

"What if we scared people with your arm? That would be cool." she said, chuckling.

"I'd be charged with murder for it, darling," she replied with a dry chuckle.

There was a bit of truth in that. The arm seemed to have a mind of its own sometimes...

"Eh, we could always throw firecrackers at bounty hunters."

Ryan gestured towards the crate filled with M-80s.

Merikki just gave a bit of a look at the crate, her one eye narrowed. "You just have that? I thought you were ice-aligned," she mused. Admittedly, Merikki forgot what two elements Ryan had.

"Nah, I have Storm, and Fire. That makes setting off these bad boys easier."

And then, Ryan walked over to the crate, and stuffed a handful of firecrackers in her pocket.

"Fair 'nuff," she replied, still wary to get the 'crackers.

And so, they left Ryan's base, eager (or, at least Ryan was) to cause some mischief.

Back to Lamplight Town, after Damon recovered, he began walking around the town, wondering what to do next. Just then, he got hit in the back of the head by... something. He whirled around, didn't see anything, and looked down, seeing the object thrown at him. It was a firecracker, which looked like it was about to go off.

Damon quickly jumped back and formed an ice wall to block the impact from the firecracker explosion, as it went off, a huge dent was made in the wall, but luckily nothing pierced through it.

Merikki just sort of spectated, since she didn't know how she felt about throwing the firecrackers herself.

Ryan, on the other hand, was laughing from the rooftops.

”How’d you like that?” she asked, really loudly.

Climbing the ice wall, Damon sat on top of it. "You got more to throw?" He responded, mildly peeved.

"Probably," Merikki chimed, letting her head poke up from her hiding spot by Ryan.

Ryan grabbed another one, and stuck her left hand close to the fuse.

With a snap, Ryan’s finger was on fire, and she lit said fuse, before throwing it at Damon again.

Damon leaned back on the first ice wall, faux yawning. Another ice wall grew out of the ground, blocking the second firecracker.

"Don't think those crackers are gonna do much of anything..." Merikki commented, blinking at Damon's strategy.

Ryan chuckled.

”Damn. Well, he’s already mad, we can’t do anything but fight him!”

She shrunk back a little, worried about seriously injuring the bounty hunter. She was aware her physical strength could get out of hand, and that already happened once or twice before.

Granted, the bounty hunter could still give Merikki a beating in response. And the fact she was basically unarmored, as she left the robe top back at Ryan's.

Ryan, on the other hand, was unfazed. She leapt off of the roof, her right foot on fire, as she aimed for Damon’s ice walls.

As Damon sat up again, he gave Ryan a bored look as she tried punching and kicking through his ice walls. This is boring, might as well leave.

“Dammit, fight me!” yelled Ryan, whose attacks were becoming slower and weaker.

Then, she started panting.

”Just… gimme a sec…”

Well, she's vulnerable now, might be able to capture her for bounty. Damon thought, he then decided to take down the walls of ice and jumped down, "You wanted to fight?" Damon asked, unsheathing his sword.

“Oh, now you wanna go?”

Ryan got into a fighting stance.

”Let’s go!”

"I don't think we wanna do that-" Merikki protested from atop her spot.

Spotting Merikki, Damon smirked, "Do you really need another person to fight me? I thought you were stronger then that."

Merikki just flipped Damon off in response.

"Hurry up so I can kick your @$$!" said Ryan, smirking. Damon crouched down, and dashed towards Ryan with surprising speed, his wavy blue hair flying back, revealing his dark blue eyes, filled with determination.

Ryan laughed, before leaping to the side.

Stopping in his tracks, Damon whirled around, casting Cold Storm, but he miscalculated. The short range didn't reach Ryan. Dang it, Damon thought.

Ryan chuckled, before charging at Damon, and trying to kick him in the face. He then heard a hearty snort from the witch above, as if she couldn't hold in her laughter.

He grabbed Ryan's leg, and flung her into Merikki above, making them both crash into each other.

Ryan got up, and chuckled.

"Finally, this should be fun!" she said.

Suddenly, an ice wall began growing from the ground below Damon, it kept growing and growing until It was triple the normal height of a house in lamplight town, he then sat down and looked down on both Ryan and Merikki, "How you gonna get me down?" He taunted.

Ryan tried to chuck a firecracker up the wall, but it didn't make it. So instead, she put a bunch of firecrackers at the base of the wall, and backed away slowly.

"This is gonna be cool!" she said.

Damon suddenly got sucker punched in the gut by what seemed to be a red-violet blur, knocking him off his tower. Merikki was pissed now. You don't just throw somebody into her!

Before Damon touched the ground, a wave of water suddenly appeared under him, cushioning his fall. I had no choice, great. Hope they didn't see that. He thought.

Merikki was fuming. Like, ticked off to the point she was making some sorta steam. The eldritch arm writhed, even if she shifted to the side to sort of hide it from Damon's view.

She was too annoyed to see Damon's fall, but she didn't give pursuit. Not yet.

There's two of them, I can't take them both on at the same time. Now what? Damon thought quickly, looking for either a way out or a way to avoid Merikki and get Ryan.

As he was thinking that, Ryan herself was running at him with a baseball bat in her hand.

”Nobody can knock me down!” she said.

As Ryan ran at him with the baseball bat, Damon ducked to avoid the swing, grabbed the baseball bat, tripping her in the process. After tripping Ryan, he threw the baseball bat as hard as he could towards Merikki, hoping that was fast enough to knock her out.

The bat made its mark, but it only made her stagger slightly.

This brat really has a death wish, doesn't he? she thought as she gave a slight head tilt towards. him.

No, no, remember your morals. Stay calm.

It was visible of her struggle to stay put, to let Ryan handle this.

Ryan got back up, and dusted off her pants.

”Damn, do you know how hard it is to wash these when you can’t just go to a laundromat?” she said.

The two of them suddenly heard a weird, fleshy sound, and then a series of shattering and smashing.

The ice pillar that Merikki punted Damon off was in shambles now, and through the mist of the ice, they could(?) vaguely see some sort of trio of what seemed to be whips.

“Aw, this is gonna be cool!” Ryan grinned, watching.

What the hell is that witch's strength? I have to avoid her attacks at all cost. Damon thought, he took out his dagger and grappled up a near house, landing on top of it. Question is, how do I get rid of her so I can capture Ryan?

Ryan picked back up her baseball bat.

”And Ryan steps up to the plate…”

Ryan crouched down.

”She gets into position…”

Then, Ryan started running towards the roof Damon was on, and as soon as she reached the wall, she started trying to climb upwards, the momentum carrying her to the rooftop.

Just then, she swung at Damon.

”It’s a hit!”

Merikki seemed stunned for a sec, and as the mist cleared, it was shown the whips were... her arm. Spiky, gross, and--by Ryan's words--metal, but it looked like it hurt. A lot.

But it was spooky, the way she just... loomed in place.

It looked like Ryan had hit Damon with the baseball bat, and she actually did, just not the way she expected it to be. It had hit Damon's outstretched arm enforced with ice around it, making it so the baseball bat would vibrate harder on Ryan's end.

“Damn!” said Ryan.

She dropped her bat, and decided to just try to kick Damon in the stomach.

Dodging out of the way of Ryan's leg, he grabbed it and flung her into Merikki again.

Merikki feinted, which definitely caused Ryan to be thrown into a wall, but that allowed Merikki to get a nice aim at Damon's side with those fiendish whips. Her feint wasn't even that far, how far did those whips go?

Ryan crashed into the wall, fell down, and got back up.

”You wanna play like that?” She asked, smirking.

Just then, she stuck out her hand, and fired an Ion Cannon right at Damon.

Dodging out of the way of the Ion cannon, Damon responded back with a Frozen Dragon. The head of the dragon charging towards Ryan at surprising speed.

Ryan’s left eye flashed red, as she ducked just in time.

Merikki swung with her proper arm, the swing being enveloped in a violet arc as it collided with the dragon's head. The dragon sort of just bounced off the swat, coming back at Damon at a surprisingly heightened speed.

Not expecting that, Damon was a bit late on reacting to the dragon being deflected, but he controlled the dragon to turn around again and fly right back at Merikki.

Through her rage, she nearly missed the Swat, but manage to do it nonetheless. The dragon was nearly at breakneck speeds, and it was looking reddish-orange now. Huh.

This time, prepared, Damon commanded the dragon to turn around again, giving Merikki less time to react to the swat.

She ended up taking the hit, causing her to literally bellow like a beast or something. The force of it caused a shockwave, which was more or less just wind pressure. It stung like a b[EEP], but it wouldn't knock Damon down.

Though, something about that wave felt... draining.

What was that about? Damon thought.

It was impossible to not notice the way she looked weakened, like she couldn't stand on her own two feet. She also looked a little chilled by the greatly empowered dragon from their ping pong match. But she could still fight.

For how long was the question, though.

She's weakened! Now's my chance. Damon thought, shooting yet another frozen dragon at Merikki.

She opted to just side-step, which oddly enough worked. It was a narrow miss, which made Merikki hiss.

Damon then dashed towards Merikki, taking a risk that could cost his life, but a pretty high chance he wouldn't die.

She was dazed, so Damon got a few good hits on her before the whips that was her arm just latched onto Damon.

And then he proceeded to be thrown into the nearby wall, but... at a lot less force than it seemed. As he got up from the wall, he looked down at the whips, What is this? Damon thought, trying to get it off his arm.

The eldritch fleshy things sorta just slithered off him and back to their "neutral" length. The source was from the witch herself - her right arm that was usually veiled was the thing the whips were from.

Weird, those whips are connected to that arm? Damon thought, dashing back in to deal more damage to the weakened witch. He didn’t notice someone dashing right behind him, holding a baseball bat.

The bounty hunter got closer and closer to Merikki, and unsheathed his sword, preparing to slice her. The witch literally flinched at the shiiiing of the sword, and Damon saw the whip-arm-thing reform into a sort of bone-like claymore. The reformation seemed like it hurt.

Just then, Ryan swung her baseball bat at Damon. As the bat struck Damon in the back, he was jerked forward as the bat guided him forward, taking advantage of this, he quickly slashed Merikki in the chest while turning around and yanking the baseball bat out of Ryan's hands.

“D*ck!" Ryan exclaimed, before trying to kick Damon in the side.

Merikki ended up taking the hit, causing her to stagger back a few steps. The claymore-bone-arm thing reverted to whips to bind Damon to pull him to her.

He could see that she was livid, and he could see that she was... missing an eye. Or, rather, a chunk of the right half of her face.

She ended up just taking a big ol' bite outta his shoulder (not enough to tear) as she flung him back, spitting out Damon's blood.

Staggering back, Damon looked at his shoulder, bleeding but still managable. He then looked up wih a deadly gleam in his eyes. "Oh well, thanks for the baseball bat." He then reinforced it with ice, adding a thick layer of it on the bat, and with just the slight drop of it on the floor, icicle spikes rose from the ground. Now dual wielding his icicle sword and his ice bat, he charged towards Merikki, and slammed the bat down on the ground as hard as he could, making big icicle spikes to emerge from the ground, puncturing anything in its way.

She stepped to the back again, getting a sudden sense of clarity, narrowly avoiding the icicle spikes. She then cleaved the ice with the whip-now-sword-thing, sacrificing a bit more of her stamina for a surplus size of it, guaranteeing both a cut through it and that shrapnel would scatter. Hopefully, anyway.

Damon built an ice wall in front of him as Merikki destroyed the spikes, protecting him from harm, he then dismantled it and slammed the bat to the ground again, causing more spikes to emerge from the ground.

Ryan, on the other hand, was trying to kick at Damon.

After casting the ice spikes again, he dodged Ryan's leg for the third time, and hit her straight with the icicle bat, flinging her into a nearby wall.

“Damn!” Ryan yelped, as she fell down. She got back up, and tried to fling a fireball at Damon.

Rolling under the fireball, Damon slammed the icicle bat into the ground in the direction of Ryan, and once again icicle spikes rose from the ground.

The traceur jumped up, sticking her tongue out at the hunter as she did so.

However when she did, Damon was already right in front of her. He had moved the icicle spikes out of his way while she had jumped up to avoid his spikes, and he smacked her in the chest with the club as hard as she could, sending her into a wall again.

“Hey, that’s no way to treat a lady, especially one as cool as me.” said Ryan, as she got up, again.

"Hey you were the one who came up to me for a fight, and I've been at a disadvantage this entire time." Damon said, "So what's it going to be, you turn yourself in or we keep fighting?"

“I didn’t go on the run for…”

Ryan paused to count her fingers.

”…8 years just to be turned in by some buzzkill with a stupid haircut.”

"That's your choice?" Damon asked, with a little tone of disapproving in his voice. "I'm going to ask you again, is that your final choice?"

“And what’s with the way you sound, too?” Ryan chuckled. “What’s next, you’re gonna say some sh*t like ‘Does not compute’, or some sh*t?”

"Because my job is to bring in fugitives, even by force." Damon said, ignoring most of what Ryan had said, and suddenly the air around Ryan became much colder. "So your choice is to fight back? Fine by me."

Ryan started laughing.

”This is gonna be cool!”

She flung two fireballs at Damon.

Damon built an ice wall to absorb the impact, but one managed to melt the wall so quick that the second actually hit Damon, but he quickly extinguished it with a quick ray of water, leaving only a burn mark on his good shoulder. He then slammed the ice club into the ground, creating huge spikes to pop up from the ground, rising up to almost 3 feet.

Merikki wanted to jump in, but she was getting really dizzy from all the hits she received. Of course, Deadly Rollick was the best play in her head, but there really wasn't a chance that she could get the full combo off. So she just played support for the time being.

Ryan, on the other hand, was trying to run to another building to get away from the spikes.

Seeing what she was doing, Damon grappled onto a building near her, and jumped down, slamming the ice club into the ground again, this time in front of Ryan, trying to stop her from going anywhere forward.

Ryan hurled two fireballs at Damon directly.

This time, instead of making an ice wall, he rolled under it, gathering momentum towards Ryan, and smacked Ryan across the head with the ice club,

After Ryan was struck, Damon suddenly felt a burning pain at his side, which followed a violet blur. He proceeded to be knocked around three more times, before being literally flung into the air.

Before he could react, Merikki lept up to smack him down back into the ground, causing a major dent in whatever terrain they were on previously. Something probably broke. Maybe.

This took a considerable bit of stamina from the witch, she even failed the landing from her own goddamn move.

His bad shoulder was even more injured now, his shoulderbone could be seen. Damon rolled under Merikki, and threw a quick kick at her before slamming down the ice club as hard as he could, as enormous spikes rose from the ground, he slammed the ice club repeatedly, making more and more spikes rise from the ground.

She managed to scrape Damon's foot with the Fiendlashes, which was another shot of pain, but she got hit by the barrage of spikes. One pierced her good arm, while the eldritch arm was just snacking on the ice. She roared out a particularly nasty curse, before giving a nasty spin with the now-claymore-whip-thing, clearing all the ice. Sorta. Maybe Damon got hit by the savage spin-out, but probably not.

Knowing he wouldn't have much longer before he would collapse due to his injuries, Damon decided to try one last thing. He sheathed his sword, and threw the ice club straight at Merikki's head.

She ended up taking the hit, but she surprisingly didn't flinch. Sure, it hurt, but she still stood.

She just gave him a look after the impact, the club in her hand.

But that's exactly what Damon wanted, as the ice layer was still on the bat, he made it so that the ice covered the entire bat, and then made it spikey, causing it to stick to Merikki's hand by the spikes digging into the flesh of her hand. Then Damon grappled to the wall behind her, and unsheathed his sword again, slashing at he chest twice in an X formation.

She managed to block both blows, before lashing out with a malicious blow to the head. Before he could recover, she hit an upper-head blow, causing him to buckle down.

Better be [BEEP]ing finished, she thought savagely, but she stepped back a few steps just in case. She flung the bat to who knows where, shaking her hand to get the blood off.

Although it looked like Damon was finished, he casted Cold Storm, trapping and spinning Merikki around in the tornadoes while Damon created multiple ice daggers and commanded them to pierce through Merikki. As they dug in to Merikki's skin, Damon cast Frozen Dragon to trap Merikki even more.

Just then, Ryan got up from the ground, groaning in pain.

”Goddamn, that hurts like a motherfu-“

She paused when she saw what was happening to Merikki.

So then, she decided to pull out a handful of firecrackers from her pocket, light them, and hurl them at Damon.

Damon heard small popping noises and looked at the direction of the firecrackers, as they were about to explode, Damon quickly created an ice wall to counter the explosion, it countered the explosions and then Damon sliced 4 blocks of ice, and kicked them all at Ryan.

Ryan dodged 3 of the blocks, and used the forth as a springboard of sorts as she leapt up into the air, right leg outstretched and surrounded by fire.

However as she leapt up into the air, Damon commanded the other three ice blocks to knock her forward and into the cold storm where Merikki was in.

Suddenly, all that was heard beyond the blizzard of ice was a grotesque squelch. Damon was impaled on the lower abdomen by what seemed to be the witch's claymore. It didn't hit anything vital, as Merikki was more in a rage and didn't bother to truly aim. Plus, if anything, this was meant to break his concentration so the blizzard would end, first and foremost.

"Take... that, you sly, albanian rodent," she snarled into Damon's ear as she withdrew the blade.

Clenching his wound, Damon looked down at it, his hand full of shining red blood. But suddenly a blue flash momentarily blacked out Merikki as Damon slugged a punch reinforced with ice to the head. Wiping his mouth from the blood dripping out of it, he dashed towards Merikki once again, and delivered a deadly melee combo to the ribcage, stunning Merikki in place.

As Merikki was struck by the punch, she stabbed again, but it ended up going just above the original stab wound. Again, nothing vital was hit, but it hurt like a [BEEP]h. She kept the blade rooted in him, using a bit of her swaying momentum to plunge the blade deeper.

"If I go down, we go together," she taunted, fully prepared to basically get annihilated.

Damon grabbed Merikki's arm that had transformed into the claymore, and looked straight into Merikki's eyes, "I disagree." Damon said, and trapped Merikki beneath a layer of ice, all around her body, he took the claymore out of his stomach once again, and threw Merikki-inside-a-layer-of-ice around into a wall, breaking the ice. Then Damon took out his dagger, and threw it right at Ryan, the rope attached to it wrapped around her neck as Damon grabbed hold of the dagger's blade and pulled her to him, he then kicked Ryan into Merikki, and finally, he activated ABSOLUTE ZERO, trapping them in place.

As Damon walked towards the frozen Merikki and Ryan, he picked up the icicle club on the way, he then stood right in front of Ryan, "Thanks for the baseball bat." Damon said as he smiled coldly, and the next second he slammed the club into the side of Ryan's head, completely shattering the ice and knocked her unconscious. Damon then looked at the frozen Merikki, who could do nothing on trying to save Ryan. She then had to watch Damon dragged Ryan back to the bounty board.

"I'm here to claim the bounty for Ryan Dashflame." Damon told the Bounty Merchant. "Oh really?" The merchant looked at the unconscious Ryan. "Well?" Damon asked the merchant. "Alright! Here you go!" The merchant said, giving Damon a pouch of gold, and took hold of Ryan. "We'll take care of her from now." The merchant said. Damon nodded and turned the other way, so satisfied with his work that he almost forgot he was bleeding heavily, so he took off in a sprint for the nearest hospital.

The trio of escapees, meanwhile, had formed a mini pile consisting of themselves due to their earlier slip-n-slide.

Zane rolled off the top of the pile and April followed suit, both notably dazed.

Meanwhile the unlucky cloaked figure—who had found themselves at the bottom of the pile—shook themselves rather like a cat, something moving beneath the fabrics of their cloak as they got up, their hood miraculously staying in place despite the tussle.

April shook out their own wings once they came back to themself, grimacing as they could feel all sorts of junk in their feathers.

Looks like I'll have to preen them later.

Then, the avian nervously glanced at the still-hooded figure, clearing their throat.

"Um... Hi? I'm still not sure what happened, but it looks like we're... um... kind of stuck together? So do you... can we... Can we know your name? Or something you go by?"

Although eye contact was not once made, the enby could feel the figure's stare, although they were offered an annoyed huff in response.

Zane, meanwhile, was awkwardly staring at the debris in April's wings. While the figure's gaze bore into the avian, Zane eventually tapped his friend on the shoulder, briefly snapping their attention away from the figure.

You have stuff in your wings. A lot of stuff. Do you mind if I take it out? Zane signed.

April glanced at Zane, awkwardly shifting their wings. They'd never... no one had ever offered to preen their wings for them before, and Zane just...

They hesitated, unwilling to trust someone else with their wings.

But it would be so nice to not have to do it myself anymore...

April sighed, and raised an eyebrow towards the dual. You can take out the larger bits, I can do the rest by myself later.

Zane gave the avian a thumbs-up and quickly went to work picking the debris out of the avian's feathers, careful to not ruffle them any more than they already were.

The first thing he removed was a pinecone.

It was a pretty big pinecone.

Among the other things he removed were a few small twigs, the occasional pebble, leaves, and significantly sized clumps of dirt.

Once he was finished, Zane stood up and looked at the avian's much cleaner wings.

However, he looked unsatisfied with all the smaller specks of dirt and grass nestled in the avian's feathers, but April said they could do the rest themselves so he left it be.

While Zane was working on their wings, April had turned back to the fugitive, trying to keep their wings as still as possible for him while they spoke. "I promise we're not... Zane and I can help you–we're all fugitives here, in some way or another. You can... you can trust us, you know?"

Zane, meanwhile, had just now realized that there were also yellow and gold leaves blending into the avian's wings and began picking those out, very careful to avoid plucking out any feathers.

The fugitive in question still offered no response, kicking the dirt and seeming mildly agitated, but not once tearing their gaze away.

April sighed and gave up on finding out their new acquaintance's name, opting to look away from and take a good look at their surroundings instead. They were in a clearing, and the area wasn't too different from Firefly Forest, but soon they noticed the thick canopy created by the many trees in the area, shrouding the ground around them in shadows.

"Hey... does anyone... know where... know what this place is?"

Out of all this things they said so far, that was what got a sound out of fugitive.

Keyword, sound, before the figure made an odd gesture to indicate they knew. Not sign language as Zane took advantage of, simply a gesture.

April turned back to them, tilting their head curiously. "You know what this place is?"

Hesitation, then a nod, albeit they crossed their arms and glanced away.

The avian also looked away, observing the thin blades of grass across the ground.

“Do you know if we’re… safe here?”

A shrug. They were edging away, clearly considering just leaving the two there despite the assistance so far.

While listening, Zane had finally chosen to stop cleaning April's wings, remembering their request to only take out the larger bits.

April lifted an eyebrow at the fugitive's actions, shifting their wings once again now that Zane had finished. "You're not leaving us behind, are you?"

They stiffened, stopping in their movements.

Obviously, the avian received no response.

April sighed once again, taking a careful step forwards.

"This isn't... we're... we're not familiar with... wherever this is, you know? It would be... if we stick together, it would be a little easier to get through... danger, if there is any." They paused for a second, glancing at the fugitive hesitantly. "We also wouldn't mind getting to know you better–you shouldn't have to... people like us should be there for each other. Especially against hunters."

It felt like they blinked. The avian wasn't sure the figure blinked but it most certainly felt like they blinked as the ominous staring feeling stopped for the briefest of moments before they made a small sound and decided to keep walking anyways.

It seems if the two were so determined to stick with the fugitive, they would have to get moving.

April followed the fugitive, folding their wings so it was easier to walk. They glanced back at Zane, hands barely rising.

Stay close.

Zane gave the avian a slight nod and trailed close behind.

The fugitive, meanwhile, picked up slightly in pace at hearing them following, quite nimbly navigating to whatever location they were heading to...along with showing a questionable amount of stamina.

April and Zane kept up with them despite all the exhausting activities the two had gone through earlier, leaving a small gap between them and the fugitive just to be safe.

As they followed the fugitive, April couldn’t help but think back to the tree they had crashed into. The avian had never heard of any sort of magic that could make a tree do that—something had to be going on there.

Making use of the peace the sort of trio had achieved, Zane looked around at the surrounding foliage as he and April followed the cloaked individual.

The individual in question was quite discomforted at being followed during the supposed "peace," but didn't say anything about it. Not they would. They took quite a few twists and turns clearly intending on going somewhere, and only when there was a change of forest did they slow down, trees being packed more closely together and becoming harder to navigate, the temperature dropping ever so slightly.

Zane, meanwhile, had turned his attention away from the surroundings and retrieved a Magic Egg from his backpack and began quietly fidgeting with it.

April shivered at the sudden temperature change, rubbing the exposed parts of their arms and folding their wings in even further.

"Are we..." They hesitated, glancing at the trees, "Are we going towards... Shiverchill? It's getting,.. colder, but..."

They trailed off, glancing back at Zane only to see him tossing an egg between his hands.

"Zane!" April snapped, snatching the egg and clutching it in their arms protectively. "You can't do that! You'll hurt the egg!"

Zane blinked, mildly confused.

Its Springfest money, he signed. I got it about a year ago after a wizard dropped it. It's not a real egg.

April blinked, still clutching the egg.

”What’s… Springfest? And why… why would they use eggs?”

Some event where wizards run around with bunny or fox headwear. I never did get to participate, Zane responded. No idea why they chose fake eggs though.

April sighed, holding the egg tighter. "Okay... right. I've never participated in that either. Or anything outside of Skywatch."

They coughed awkwardly, staring at the ground.

"...Sorry I freaked out over the egg. "

It's fine. You can keep if you want, the dual responded with one hand while fidgeting with a Floran in the other. He paused, now looking behind the avian. Hey, where did they go?

They in question were currently perched in some nearby branches, tilting their head quizzically as they observed the avian's flustering panic and following conversation.

April glanced around, making a sound of surprise when they finally looked up.

"What are you doing up there?"

As per usual, they received no answer before the figure darted off again, leaving them only to follow.

April and Zane quickly followed the fugitive, still unsure of where they were going.

Zane shoved the Floran into his bag and quickly scaled up the nearest tree, keeping pace with April as he leapt from branch to branch.

As the figure continued darting along, it became especially evident that this was a new section of forest, as the trees had long since transitioned from the colorful shades of firefly, to the strange and exotic willows and pines, and finally odd, cypress-like trees doted with small berries that did not seem edible.

The forest was also opening up just enough to form a narrow path, logs doting the ground and—was that a house?

It was clearly some sort of building, practically built into the trees and covered with snow, a few similar structures out in the distance, now that the duo's attention was drawn to it.

With the house in sight, Zane suddenly became hesitant about advancing further. They had just followed a stranger all the to their house without even gaining permission. This was just ignorant at best and downright creepy at worst.

Dread started to sink in as the boy's thoughts delved into a paranoid downward spiral.

What if they lived with someone? What if that someone wasn't friendly? What if that someone attacked him and April? What if this was all a trap and the stranger was about to attack him and April?

On the inside, the dual's mind was racing, yet on the outside, he remained on a tree branch, frozen still.

A wing hesitantly draped over the worrying wizard's back as April gave him a small smile.

It'll be okay. They signed. They're dead if they try to hurt us.

And they in question...were gone again. However, there was a rustle noise coming from behind the two...

Zane, still on edge, quickly whipped around.

Forgetting that he was still on a branch, the dual immediately lost his footing and fell backwards, plummeting towards the ground.

Not even giving themselves any time to be shocked, April dove down after Zane, wrapping their arms around him and letting the two of them plummet down. They extended their wings just before they hit the ground and swooped upwards, gaining enough height to perch on another branch.

Once they landed, April made sure they were both stable before letting go, glancing at Zane worriedly.

Are you hurt anywhere? What happened?

The question was answered by a surprised chirp, in which originated behind the two of them.

Had it not been for his knuckle-whitening grip on the branch beneath him, Zane would have startled himself off of a branch again.

April spun around, making a high-pitched whistling chirp of their own in a startled response, before clapping their hands over their mouth in embarrassment. Perched on a branch behind them was another figure, seemingly different to the fugitive they had been chasing.

April quickly noticed the dark, black wings that the stranger had, and warily met their curious eyes. "Who... are you?"

Their gaze briefly flicked, looking the two up and down before before they warily answered, "...I could ask you that."

Zane slowly turned around to face the figure, still very tense. Noticing the figure's wings, the dual glanced at April, then at the figure, then back at April, then finally rested his gaze on the figure and tilted his head curiously, slightly relaxing.

April sighed. "We're... hiding from stuff. He's a... I'm... neither of us are... normal, let's just say." They paused for a second, glancing at Zane unsurely. "I'm April, he's Zane. We came with a hooded figure but... we don't... we're not sure where they went. They were also running from the same thing–just bounty hunter trouble and all that. But that's all you're getting from us–now who are you?"

A subconscious chirp, then blank stare, "...I think that was way too much but okay." They readjusted their wings to a more comfortable position—flapping them out before folding them, a few feathers ruffled loose—before continuing, "I'm Breeze! And the hooded figure up there? That's Gale."

"Up where—"

Perched in a few branches above them was the said figure, perched in a cat-like manner as they stared down at them, a tail occasionally lashing out from beneath their cloak.

So that's where they went.

For a moment, the two parties found themselves locked in an awkward silence.

Eventually, Zane opted to wave at Gale, who was still staring down at the duo.

This did absolutely nothing to break the silence.

April softly mouthed "Gale" to themselves, before glancing back at what they assumed to be another avian. They kept glancing towards their wings, biting their lip nervously.

"Are you... an... avian? You have, the, um..." They awkwardly gestured towards their own wings.

"Oh?" Breeze tilted their head, staring at April in interest, "No, I'm a tengu! Well, half tengu, but that's kind of besides the point." She rambled a bit after that, muttering something about the nearby islands and fey.

Zane blinked and looked at April, mildy confused.

April shrugged at Zane. I'm just as confused as you are, they signed, hands low and hidden.

While listening, they absently rubbed the exposed part of their arm as the cold they'd previously been able to ignore started to become more noticeable–they had already unconsciously curled their wings around themself as a sort of feathery pseudo-blanket.

Noticing the avian's chilliness, Zane removed a Hot Cocoa from of his bag and handed it to April.

It may not be winter, but hey, who said one can't warm up with some nice hot chocolate anyway?

April perked up at the offered drink, taking it in their hands and holding it close to their chest to warm up. Oddly enough, they weren't making any move to drink it, even though they were staring into the dark brown liquid in a longing manner.

Gears in Zane's head slowly began to turn as he noticed his friend's hesitation. Then a lightbulb clicked on his head as he realized his critical error. He quickly snatched the Hot Cocoa out of April's hands, replaced it with a Glassfire that was missing a vast majority of its handle, and then began profusely signing apologies to the avian.

Apparently nature itself says some can't enjoy a nice cup of hot chocolate.

April blinked at the Glassfire in their hands, and then Zane's frantically moving hands, laughing a little at the whole situation.

It's okay, you didn't know. I wasn't going to drink it anyways.

They turned towards Breeze, who had gone quiet, and tilted their head. "Do you... we know that... Gale... has three elements, but are you... are you the same?"

A blankstare. "Four."

A confused chirp.

"They have four. And...yeah. What, did Gale do something stupid again?"

Can't be worse than me throwing a firework at the same bounty hunter chasing him, Zane signed.

"He's saying that it can't be worse than... throwing a firework at a bounty hunter who was chasing Gale." April translated. "And... yeah. They... they could probably explain the parts I don't know, but... we were... there was... Gale was being chased by a bounty hunter and this... cat lady, and then Zane and I came in to help."

The two exchanged glances at the word 'explain,' leading to Breeze speaking, "Um...Gale's just as at a loss for words as your friend over there." A nervous laugh, then a muttered comment, "Would be real helpful for them to have a way to speak like you two."

April blinked. "Can they... write?"

"When they want to," and with that, shot Gale a pointed glance.

Upon seeing Breeze and Gale's blank stares, April laughed awkwardly. "He wants to know where we are."

A blink, then Breeze perked with a small chirp, clearly about to answer before she stopped.

"Wait, are we allowed to tell humans that?"

A head shake.

"Well, one of them isn't."

A shrug.

"And they're already here..."

Another shrug.

"We're in the Sylvan Forest, then."

Zane nodded a single time in acknowledgement and shifted from perching on the branch to sitting on it. Letting his legs dangle from the branch, he began absentmindedly fidgeting with a Floran again as he looked around.

While Zane relaxed, April blinked, awkwardly swaying on their branch.

Sylvan Forest... what is... should I know that? Zane seems to know...

April glanced up at the two siblings, nervously scratching their face. "Um... I don't... I... was never... what's the, um, Sylvan Forest...?" They asked, keeping their voice as small and quiet as possible so there was a chance they didn't hear their question.

Despite April's quiet tone, Zane still heard their question and looked at them, putting his Floran in his lap. A secret forest in Firefly Forest, he signed. To be honest, until a few seconds ago, I thought it was just a rumor.

"Oh..." April replied, glancing at the ground. "Does that... does that mean we're safe here?"

That caused Gale and Breeze to exchange a glance.

"I mean it's been safe for now but..." The bird winged girl tapped a finger against her chin, "No one really knows how long it'll stay safe."

April blinked. "What... do you mean by that...? If this place has stayed secret for so long, why would it stop being safe?"

Zane's gaze shifted from April to the two half-tengus in curiosity.

"Well...it's only a matter of time until humans find this place." The girl's ears drooped a bit, "Then we'll all be in trouble."

April nodded in understanding, glancing at the tree trunks around them. Their wing-ears twitched as they suddenly remembered something, and they looked up at Breeze. "Oh, I was actually... I wanted to know about the... entrances to this place? Zane, Gale, and I kind of... crashed into a tree, but the tree wasn't a tree... more like an illusion–or portal, I guess, and I was just wondering... what kind of magic can do that?"

A perk, "Oh that's just Shadow Magic. No one can do it anymore, though, so it's just been fading away."

"What's... Shadow Magic?" April asked, before flinching and scratching the side of their face awkwardly. "I mean, I'm sure it's common knowledge, but no one ever... told me about that, so, um..." They trailed off, staring at the ground.

"I...uh..." Breeze paused and blinked, adjusting her perch, "...I don't know? I just know what it does." With that, she shrugged.

"Oh... okay. I've... never heard of it before... it's always just been the six. Does... does Shadow Magic only appear in the Sylvan Forest?" April asked, getting comfortable on their own branch.

Her tail flicked, then another shrug, "I wish I knew. The people who used to use Shadow Magic went away a long time ago. At least that's what the others say."

Zane tilted his head in curiosity and his brow furrowed.

They just "went away"?

Yeah right.

The wardens probably had something to do with it.

They're the reason so many just "went away".

But why people who used this "Shadow magic"?

April glanced at Zane's expression, wrapping a wing around his shoulders once again when they saw his thoughtful frown.

"Zane? Are you okay?"

Zane glanced to the left at April, then looked at the ground below with no response. For several seconds, the two silently remained as they were.

Then, Zane slowly raised his hands no higher than his chest.

The wardens are the reason they all disappeared, aren't they?

"The wardens... What?" April was stunned. "I mean, they might be enforcing laws against elements mixing with each other, but... there's no way... removing a whole element? They wouldn't... they couldn't do that, could they?"

April turned to Breeze and Gale, eyebrows knitted together. "Do you... do you know when Shadow Magic disappeared?"

The two seemed mildly surprised by the question, but Breeze soon answered, "You know, I never bothered to consider the Wardens were responsible...but—" She dragged out the last word, standing up on her branch, "—Shadow Magic disappeared slowly. It started a few years after the law was enforced, not the same year, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's not the first element to vanish, and it certainly won't be the last. Plus new elements appear all the time, it's not as if magic itself will dissapear."

April blinked. “But… it’s protecting the Sylvan Forest… don’t you want it back?”

"Well, it's..." A pause, "it would be good to have it back, but...since the people who used it aren't around anymore...it would be kind of useless to have an element no one knows how to use, right?"

Zane crossed his arms, clearly unsatisfied with the truth.

April nodded slowly, still unsure. "I guess that makes sense... you mentioned that it's not the first element to vanish, by the way. Does that... are there... other elements like Shadow Magic?"

"More like Astral Magic. That's also gone away though, alongside Shadow. Can't have an element if there's nothing to balance it, that's what the others say," she began to climb down, calling up, "Anyhow, if you want to keep asking questions you come inside, it's getting late."

The silent wizard, meanwhile, stared down at April with an expression that looked like his soul had just returned from a very recent unapproved leave. Green essence swirled around the wizard's right hand, and a vine wrapped around the branch. The dual grabbed the other end of the vine and hopped off the branch, slowly lowering himself to the ground as the vine extended downwards.

April smiled innocently as Zane reached the ground, looking for all the world as though they had reached the ground through perfectly normal, safe for the soul methods.

Then they looked up, tilting their head. "Gale? You coming?"

A perk.

The cloaked figure approached the edge of the branch they were perked on, clutching it with their hands and moving in a cat-like manner. You would think they would drop down to the branch below and gradually climb down, but it seems Gale had other plans as they jumped from the top of the tree—giving a certain dual a second soul liberating experience—and with a slight burst of wind, effectively recreated Feather Falling and landed on their feet. Well, hands as well, but that was besides the point.

Zane took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, quickly relaxing.

As they were all out of the tree, Breeze waisted no time in marching off to the nearby cabin the duo had noticed up in their arrival, with Gale glancing them a look as he got up before running after her.

Seems like they were the ones who lived there.

Zane perked up in curiosity at seeing the cabin and the teenager continued forward, curiosity suppressing any fears.

April followed the siblings into their home, tilting their head curiously.

"It's so cozy." They remarked, walking around cautiously as if they were afraid they'd break something.

With that, the two glanced each other, the snow covered floor, and the odd cots in the corner.

"Cozy?"

Gale shrugged.

"I mean it's better than sleeping on the ground..."

A point at their cloak then the two.

"Yeah, you're right, it's also warmer in here." With that, she turned to the pair, "If you plan on staying, you use the cots," a wave of her hand, "it won't be our first time on the floor."

Zane blinked. On the snow? he signed.

When the local bird translated, Breeze quickly responded, “It wouldn’t be the first time,” and shrugged, “plus we'll sweep it up.”

Zane did not seem very satisfied with this response.

April hesitated. "Um, can I actually... there's... I'd rather sleep on the floor. More room. And all that."

Silence.

"Wait..."

A blink.

"...did no one teach you how to sleep with the whole wings thing...?"

April looked away. "It's... I'm the only... um... avian, in Skywatch. Or was. I just slept on my stomach most of the time."

"...oh. I know what that's like." Breeze sat down on the floor, wings folded against the ground, "I mean, I'm not the only fey here, obviously, just the only Tengu. Besides Gale but xe doesn't count." The teen childishly tripped up the aforementioned person, who, miraculously, managed to remain concealed by their cloak even after falling on the floor.

Honestly, the duo were beginning to suspect the fabric was weighted.

Regardless, Breeze continued, "Fey still have wings to deal with, but not bird wings that need preening and are very painful to sleep on." An exasperated sigh, before glancing up at the avian, "I can show you a few positions to try, if you want."

April blinked. "You... can? I'd... that would be nice... but I still have to preen so, um, I really don't think the cot is for me..."

"How do you manage to do that anyways?" A side glance at Zane, "Do they help you? You do seem to get along well..."

April's face went beet red. "Oh, uh, no it's not... he's not... he doesn't usually uh, do it for me... I kind of just... do it myself? Like this–" The avian knelt down and leaned forwards, unfolding their wings and bending their left arm underneath them. Then, they started smoothing out their feathers at the bottom of their wings and plucking out the loose ones with what looked like an uncomfortably twisted wrist, only showing small hints of strain as they moved.

"It takes a while, but I can reach all the problematic spots on my wings, so... it works!"

A blink.

"How."

"...I mean, I've had over ten years to practice doing it like this...? It was a lot harder when I was younger though, since my arms weren't nearly as long as they are now–but I could still do it."

April seemed completely oblivious to the incredulous looks they were being given, simply continuing to... preen.

A stare. Simply a stare.

"...you're as crazy as Gale."

Zane raised his hands to chest-level and very slowly, he signed the following: April, my close companion, I regret to inform you that your current technique regarding your independently operated preening poses a high risk to the future structural integrity of your back and will unequivocally result in the muscles allowing for the mobility of your radiocarpal joint to experience mild to high discomfort in ensuing years should you choose to continue with this approach. I highly suggest that you reconsider your choice of action and request assistance from others so that you may preserve the current functionality of your body.

Just kidding.

He actually signed this: April, this hurts to watch and it is going to hurt you. Please stop and let someone else preen your wings.

April hesitated, before dropping their hands and rolling their shoulders, trying to return the blood flow into their arms. "I... It's really not that bad... and I'm not... every time I let someone else try to preen them they did it all wrong and everything just hurt more." They looked away. "Really, it's fine..."

A pause, then Gale moved over and sat behind Breeze, gently taking hold of her wing—earning a startled chirp—and working through the feathers and preening them. Spindly gray fingers combs through the fluff, occasionally pinching and straightening out the barbs of a quill that managed to get quite ruffled up. Any feathers that shook loose were moved off to the side, neatly sorted out in descending size.

After a bit, they glanced up at April, tilting their head as if to say, 'See? It didn't hurt her.'

April stared at Breeze's wing and then Breeze herself, like she was trying to verify that there really wasn't any pain. Then, they hesitantly stretched out one of their own wings, looking at the two siblings nervously. "It really doesn't... hurt?"

A collective head shake.

"Not at all!"

Zane tilted his head at April briefly, then straightened up again. Were people ripping out your feathers when you let them preen you?

April stared at the ground. “They said it was hard to tell the difference between loose feathers and connected ones so I just stopped asking and learned how to do it myself.” The avian sighed, staring at their outstretched wings. “If it really doesn’t hurt then… can you… um, can you… do it…?” April cringed, hiding behind their ear-wings.

A blink, voice softening as Breeze patted the ground in front of her to indicate for the avian to sit down, "Of course."

Zane promptly plopped down to the snow-coated ground and began very intently watching Breeze and April. Shortly after sitting on the snow, the teenager adopted a notably strained expression that intensified with every passing second.

As it would turn out, snow is cold. Who knew?

April flinched as Breeze reached for their wing, too tense to realize that the tengu had already started.

As Breeze worked through their left wing, Gale finished up with Breeze and moved to sit next to her, helping finish up April's right. Within a matter of minutes, the two finished, with the cloaked of the two siblings going back to sorting out the loose feathers.

"See? It wasn't that bad."

April blinked, looking over their shoulder and staring at their wings in astonishment. "You really... it didn't..."

They folded their wings seemingly in shock, before they shook their head and turned around to Breeze and Gale. "It's so... thank you so much."

"It's nothing!" As Breeze was practically beaming, her sibling in particular stood up and walked up the Zane.

There was just a moment of staring before suddenly a tail lashed beneath the cloak, effectively brushing the snow away and toppling the boy onto the wooden floor,

Hey, at least he wouldn't freeze now.

Zane—now on his side—blinked in surprise, sat up on the snow-free part of the floor, and signed a thank-you to Gale.

April still looked dazed from the preening, but they shook their head to clear their thoughts.

"Um... our conversation before this... you were talking about an... Astral Magic? Do you know what that does too?"

As Gale finished cleaning, Breeze perked up to answer, "Well, supposedly, Astral Magic used to balance Shadow Magic, but I'm not quite sure what it did either. I do know the Wardens weren't happy when it dissapeared."

April stared at the snow-covered floors, humming in thought. "So... does that mean the Wardens liked Shadow Magic too, then? Because if Astral balances Shadow then... they must have wanted both, right?"

"Who knows," she replied with a shrug, before getting up to help Gale—who was currently poking at the small fireplace in the stone-laid area of the cabin.

April watched the siblings, tilting their head. "You said you both have four elements, right?"

The girl hummed in confirmation as she playfully yanked down Gale's hood, in which the fellow ivory shot an amber glare in her direction.

The avian blinked at the similarities between the two, before shaking their head. "If you guys have four... then... do you think it's possible for someone to have the main six elements...?"

"I mean, yeah...? Apparently, that sort of thing happened a lot when there were still seven." The last word was said in a higher pitch as Gale shoved her, rolling their eyes before practically jabbing at the logs with the poker when the coals died out again.

April sighed. "Do you think there's a record of these things somewhere? People in Skywatch always used to talk about a huge library in the Academy..."

As Gale emitted a...sound of frustration, their sibling snapped her fingers and with a bought of fire magic, the hearth came to light. Honestly those noises they made were a wee bit concerning.

The tengu's gaze flicked to meet the avian's, "The Academy? Wouldn't that...require going near the wardens though?" Her voice sounded small, ears pinning back. However her worry was quickly interrupted by a sharp kick from her sibling as they moved to shove some items in the pot hanging from the fireplace crane.

At that bit of dialogue, Zane perked up and began discreetly, yet rapidly signing aw heck naw's to himself.

How, exactly, he managed to get a southern American accent into sign language on a Prodigian island was beyond even the universe's understanding.

April almost flopped back on the floor before remembering their wings and deciding against it. "Riiiight. I forgot about that..."

They made a frustrated sound similar to Gale's, wrapping their wings around themself and mumbling, "There's got to be some way to get everyone like us out of this mess..."

And with that, a bowl of something was shoved in front of April, right in cue with their dispair. A similar bowl had also been shoved in front of Zane and Breeze, with the responsible party flopping down nearby, albeit in a rather odd position.

Clearly, this was their way of saying 'shut up and eat.'

Zane picked up the bowl, gave Gale a nod of thanks and began quietly slurping up the contents.

April nodded a thank-you to Gale and started working through the food, at a much slower pace compared to Zane. After they were about halfway through the bowl, they sighed, feeling tired from all the events that had happened in just a day.

Zane put down his bowl and looked at April. Using his right hand, he curled his index, middle, and ring finger into his palm while leaving his thumb and pinky outstretched. After tapping his chin twice with the gesture, he pointed at April, then curled his fingers into an open circle, and finally made a hand gesture in which he pressed his pinky and ring finger against his palm, pointed his index finger straight up, and pressed his thumb against the side of his middle finger, which was angled upwards.

April blinked, before shooting Zane a tired smile. A lot has happened today, so I think I'm just tired.

They stood up glancing at Breeze. "When, um, when you finish your meal, do you think you could... show me the... the, um, positions you mentioned earlier?"

A blink, two, and the tengu practically chugged the contents of the bowl before rushing off to show April the positions, leaving Zane to stare in astonishment while Gale simply sighed in disappointment at their sister's antics.

Gale glanced at the contents of xeir bowl, before finishing up in a much more corteous manner, unclipping their cloak and exposing a pair of wings, the upper pair resembling that of a fey while the other were bird wings. Xey dropped the robes and stretched the cramped up limbs, folding the feathered ones as to preen them—thankfully, the bird wings were the lower pair, so although the contortionism was much more than Zane could ever manage, it looked...relatively safer than whatever April did earlier.

They swiped their robes off the floor and spread it like a blanket next to where Breeze was showing one of her many sleeping positions—the current one being a camel position not dissimilar from loafing like a cat—when Gale curled up on the cloak, back facing the ceiling, folded their wings about their sides as if a blanket, with their fey wings pressed against their back.

Frankly, they looked much more comfortable than whatever Breeze was doing, and looked not dissimilar from a sleeping bird.

It was painfully obvious who April would take advice from, seeing Breeze was very capable of falling asleep standing up.

Zane looked down at the two tengus on the ground, then back up at the cots. Somehow, didn't expect the two to actually sleep on the floor.

Well, seems like he and April were going to use the cots after all.

Two hours later and despite being the only one without wings and having a cot to sleep on, Zane was the one who couldn't find a comfortable position to sleep in.

Frustrated, the boy sat up and crossed his arms with a huff. He got off of the cot and looked down at the two tengus, silently considering whether or not to wake one of them up to offer them the cot. Deciding not to wake either one up, Zane quietly left the cabin in search of a good tree to sleep in.

As the newly formed group of fugitives slumbered, in a place not far away and in spite of the fact that it was now the middle of the night, a bounty hunter and his "cat lady" comrade were still patrolling the general area where a certain formerly pursued trio had seemingly shattered the laws of physics on complete accident.

The bounty hunter paced back and forth between the same stretch of treeline where the trail had gone cold- or rather, invisible,- internal dialogue suddenly uninhibited due to compounding frustrations over the day's events on top of fatigue.

The trees don't look right.

The trees do look right. But they're not normal.

How aren't they normal?

Which tree did they... pass through?

Will I be able to move that tree?

Is there anything stopping me from moving every tree in this forest until I find the tree that doesn't?

This is above my pay grade.

I still have to get my cloak patched.

Boardy isn't planning on handing out promotions unless I double my catch rate.

Boardy should lower his expectations, the rat bastard.

I shouldn't say that out loud.

I wish I could have taken a critical injury during that chase so I could avoid finishing this job (which is clearly above my pay grade.)

I wouldn't be able to pay the medical fees.

I need to finish this job for the money.

I need to find my targets.

Trees. Think about where my targets went.

...

I'm gonna start shaking trees if this lady doesn't have any better ideas.

Hoping partially for a better plan of action, but also for an excuse to vent the day's struggles through vigorous arboreal displacement, Luke turned to his situational ally.

"Any ideas?"

With that, Lea sniffed the air, "Well...I can still smell a trail so they didn't teleport. They actually walked through the trees." She put her hands on her hips and shrugged, "You're the Earth Magic specialist, aren't you supposed to use the force and move the trees? Suprised you haven't tried yet."

"I was planning on it."

The bounty hunter promptly drew his staff, jabbing it into the ground and driving it deeper until the magic implement hit the root network. Green essence flowed from its core and down its grooves, then out of sight underground- the staff then pulsed with a verdant glow, cuing Luke into performing an immensely complex Plant manipulation technique befitting of effectively gaining dominion over an entire section of Firefly.

The bounty hunter proceeded to yank the staff around like a manual gearshift operated by an aggravated chimpanzee.

Every tree within a reasonable radius began to follow its movements- save for a few, which Luke was far too busy hitting fighting game inputs with his weapon to single out.

Except, the trees in front of him didn't move. The bounty hunter was certainly capable of sensing the forest in that direction, they just didn't move.

Not too far away from the duo, a certain silent wizard was grouchily slogging through the forest, searching for a new tree to sleep in after the last one tossed him five feet upwards in the air into another tree mid-nightmare, then got thrown into another tree, which sent him hurtling into another tree, which launched him into another tree, which finally hurled him into the ground.

Yeah, Zane was not very happy right now.

Back in the clearing, the felinoid snickered, "And this is why I'm the executionist and you aren't."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," the bounty hunter somewhat begrudgingly conceded the bluenette as he retrieved his staff and stepped forward.

"So to get in, they just-"

His voice completely cut off as he appeared to noclip directly into the wood's surface.

With that, the cat girl rolled her eyes, tail swishing as she waited for the bounty hunter to glance back in shock, just as expected. If he didn't she'll catch up to him in a heartbeat.

A gloved hand promptly emerged from the illusory tree, swishing at the surface in an attempt to discern any texture or depth. The rest of the upper half of the bounty hunter proceeded to follow suit, his eyes glancing around in (an unfortunately predicted) confusion to betray an otherwise unbothered face before retracting back into the arbor.

Smirking in satisfaction, the bluenette padded after the bounty hunter, quickly picking up the trail once more. Frankly, it honestly seemed like she sacrificed her companion to test the barrier, but that was another story.

The felinoid crossed the barrier to the sight of a shadowed clearing, sticks and leaves strewn about from the aftereffects of the extremely precise methods used to locate the fake trees. The bounty hunter's body language had once again slipped into the trance-like hunting silence, though the lack/obfuscation of visual indicators for where the fugitives had fled to meant the effort was seemingly fruitless- he proceeded to silently acknowledge he would probably be relying on Lea far more than he would like to consider.

So, with her tail proudly strut up like a cat, the individual led the currently feral human deeper into the dark and creepy woods to go on a manhunt.

It's already beginning to sound like a horror movie.

Meanwhile, as the two Boardy affiliates progressed through the forest, something followed from within the shadows. Dark violet robes almost appeared to consume any light that brushed it, leaving the space around the thing in pitch darkness. The fabrics nearly perfectly muffled their steps, allowing them to stalk their target as the two sought their own.

It had taken them quite a bit to catch up...admittedly, they had slacked off during the day, keeping their distance from any source of that wretched sunlight. Yet they kept tabs on him just fine regardless.

Honestly, they're all the same, really. Pay way too much attention to their goals and not what's behind them...

To be frank, the figure found it a bit amusing, seeing a Darkshade being reduced to the equivalent of a feral cat hunting a mouse. Way too amusing seeing the context they had.

Ah, well, they could only watch them for so long.

An odd essence formed the shape of a hilt, extending into a staff, and finally finishing into a war hammer. Despite its size, it was surprisingly light, and they swept it about similar to a scythe. Standing up on the branch, they struck the trunk of the tree their were on, resulting in an echoing sound the two simply couldn't ignore.

The bounty hunter being watched immediately whipped around and backstepped, the swishing of his cloak somehow the only proper noise produced from the motion. Still having been locked into his focused state, eyes sharp as fractured obsidian barely took more than a moment to lock onto nearly the exact spot where the sound had come from, but could not focus on any humanoid shape- only the war hammer was visible.

And something was terribly off about it to his eyes.

He'd seen something like this before. A recurring nightmare of a wasteland in endless darkness, where a material not dissimilar had composed organisms Luke could only describe as things. Things which had done nothing but harm. The rational mind told the bounty hunter that these things were dreams, that they held no jurisdiction over reality, yet a vastly stronger gut instinct compelled him to draw his staff and summon a crescent blade at its end.

The hammer blinked at him.

It blinked.

Adorning the odd hammer was what first appeared to be some sort of gemstone, but now that the Bounty Hunter was focused on it, the fact the violet optics were observing him was undoubted. The responsible smiled at having gained his attention (along with Lea's), and began to walk along the branch to hang nearly directly over their target.

"Oh, hi Luke! Nice to see you again."

Honestly, the voice itself was enough to make someone recoil. No, it wasn't some terrifying ear-splitting voice that would someone wielding an occult war hammer should have, rather, it was the voice of a child. Or at least, a teenager who was lucky enough not to have voice cracks yet. They were a rather tall shadowy figure.

"I can call you that, right? Honestly, it would be rather annoying to call you Darkshade all the time. You're not the boss of me yet."

"Have we met before?" the bounty hunter inquired, shifting his feet to follow the movement of the figure. The more they talked, the more alert Luke became- they gave off the sense that, while they certainly wouldn't take him down easily, that didn't entail him being able to take them down, either.

A hum, "You could say that." They idly twirled the hammer, which was, frankly easy for them due to how light it was, but somewhat intimidating to those who didn't realize, "You were the one who sent me here. Or at least, your 'brothers'—am I allowed to say that? Don't quite know your preferences yet."

Meanwhile, Lea was very intensely shooting Luke a look of, What the actual f**k are they talking about?

"The hell are you-"

Three figures from his dream. Him, but not him, slight variance, all in the same colors as the hammer. He remembered them clearly now.

He remembered them taking him lower, into somewhere dark and cold.

"...on about?"

Now he was certain. That nightmare was something else. Something very clearly linked to the figure before him. Maybe not prophetic, but certainly and undeniably with a dangerous degree of reality.

This revelation also failed to provide Lea with literally any information besides the fact that he, too, had middling comprehension at best.

A laugh, "If you want to know so badly, you can always come with me to find out." They dropped out of the tree in front of them, swinging the maul so the heavier end would rest on the floor. They held their right hand out, but their left had a death grip on the staff of the weapon as if they were expecting a fight—and based on their mad grin, they would enjoy it.

"Doesn't sound like something I'd be interested in. What happens if I refuse?"

The core of the staff flashed emerald as the bounty hunter brought his right hand to the lower end and placed his left just below the core, taking a wide stance with the blade facing upwards, weapon parallel to his arms and angled downwards.

"Or maybe that isn't something I'm interested in, either."

They recalled their hand with a shrug, stepping toward and meeting Luke's gaze, but by doing so, effectively adjusted his feeting to parray a blow if the Bounty Hunter struck first.

"Well, I was getting kind of bored anyways," A head tilt, "you and the cat over there won't be that entertaining...but oh well."

Nearly invisibly, the bounty hunter met the figure's challenge headon with a slight shift in stance so his scythe's blade tapped against the ground, leading to a green flash in the staff's core.

A quiet rumble, then an explosion of earth skyward- a network of overgrowing rigid roots burst from the ground beneath the obfuscated enemy, crushing inwards.

A grin.

Dark, black essence ate away at the vines, melting them away as the figure stepped closer, eyes now a shade of purple as they smiled.

"Is that all?" More of that hungry, consuming essence swirled about their hands, waiting for opportunity, "I was rather hoping you'd be the more creative sibling."

"What kind of..."

A sweep against the ground saw another root burst around the figure, and an upwards swinging digging into the ground summoned heaps of dirt and rock, instantly condensing into sharpened stones that hailed from above. The displacement of the trees caused an inwards tilt around within a nearby radius at the same time, creating a makeshift arena of fallen arbor and sunken earth.

The essence eagerly lept up to consume the stones that hailed from above as the figure continued to advance, war hammer rattling against the ground, "That was interesting," they piped, a little too cheery.

Meanwhile, Lea was glaring at Luke intensely, ice magic beginning to swirl.

"What. The hell. Did you get us into?"

"I didn't 'get' us into s**t," he promptly shot back, heart rate beginning to rise as more and more of the attack was seemingly deleted. Another sweeping motion led to the manifestation of a series of earthen skewers from the walls of the sunken zone, stabbing towards the figure at a 70 degree arc. Roots exploded outwards from their surfaces, attempting again to restrain the figure as to make sure the spikes landed. "I don't know that one, and clearly they're here for me. So you can either sit here and let yourself turn into collateral, get out of here and find our marks, or help me take them out."

The blonde figure tilted their head with that bastard grin of there's, essence gobbling up the spell once more.

Lea promptly shot him a glance, "So the options are leave you to die while I watch, leave you to die while I run, or I save your a**. Got it."

With that, she vanished.

That's right, vanished into a swirl of blue particles.

Just as the Bounty Hunter was about to say some rather unpleasant things regarding the supposedly impossible teleport (without the use of an official map distributed by the standard procedure which he personally could confirm Lea would never do), the executionist reappeared a short distance behind the figure, katars in hand and ice magic swirling to form icy chains, the temperature of the arena dropping drastically.

That, evidently, left in a state of confusion, as, as far as he knew, she didn't hail from a species capable of 'stepping.'

Well, he could ask those questions later as the fighter's ice was neutralized, the figure's elf-like ears pricked as they caught the sound of her movement and swung the war hammer, to which she promptly disappeared and reappeared elsewhere. The lowered temperature remained, but the unknown essence began to fester where the hammer had struck ground, leaving a crater in the soil.

It wasn't possible for the figure—at least at their age—to be that strong. Even if they were a Fey a crater that large would be—

They lifted the hammer up, single-handedly, grinning back at the two.

"Oh? This is getting fun."

Green eyes flashed at the same time as the core of the bounty hunter's staff, cuing the bluenette into a follow-up attack as he rushed forward with blade dragging against the floor. The line etched by his approach filled in with green essence, and when he executed the rising slash against the enemy, the essence exploded into an overgrowth of thorned vines lashing towards the predicted dodge direction.

As before, the magic was consumed, the figure quickly swinging their war hammer to parry the scythe, eyes fixing on Luke. The felenoid quickly struck from behind, only for claw to meet...what even is this stuff?

Black essence had condensed into shield, forming into inky, living matter that had taken the blow, writing beneath hand in disgust at being touched.

The combined assault didn't slow in tempo, the bounty hunter repeatedly slashing and filling in the downtime with projectiles and traps, but to little avail. Whatever that essence was, there was no overcoming it- not with any known element, so it seemed.

Regardless of their fruitless efforts, their combatant seemed to be enjoying this, pushing closer to Luke with each swing and block. Eventually, the advance ended with another swing of the war maul, striking ground hard enough that the two were thrown back, the individual allowing the weapon to drag along the floor as they looked over the wizards and tilted their head.

"Is that all?"

"What are you trying to do here?" the bounty hunter countered, sliding back smoothly on manipulated earth beneath his feet. The ground promptly shot upwards, propelling him back towards the enemy, leading the subsequent crescent slash with a spray of rock ejected from the blade of the scythe.

The maul parryed once more, with the responsible simply smiling, "I'm just doing my job, same as you."

"So what is that job supposed to be?" Luke followed up, punctuating every other word with either a hurled spray of rock, a root burst, or a slash. "And what do you mean by 'brothers?'", he added, marking the end of his query with an increase in tempo.

Every attack was blocked as before, the individual picking up in pace to match the bounty hunter, "My job?" They smiled, dark essence blocking off Lea to keep her at bay, "Is to bring you back 'home' to your brothers. They aren't happy about your absence." They continued to grin, swiping their hammer with the speed of a polearm but with the weight of anvil. They eyes adorning it were significantly changing into color, staring up at Luke with a deep gray.

"Yeah, definitely not interested."

The slashes further picked up as maul and scythe clashed over and over again, an upwards slash tearing up the ground- the next parried blow left a fading green mark on the hammer that quickly dissipated, though not before causing the displaced earth to slam into and build up on the surface of the opposing weapon. A ploy to give it mass the enemy couldn't control, even if only for a fleeting moment.

A brief, temporary look of interest followed by annoyance as an explosive charge released from the weapon, blasting off the earth and resetting the maul's eyes to violet. However, the moment of distraction was enough for both of the figure's opponents to gain ground, with Lea striking from behind and Luke swiping from up front. It honestly seemed as if they finally had a shot, as the figure wouldn't be able to swing their maul with the space they were given—wait, hold on, did they just roll their eyes?

The figure appeared and reappeared, and with that, both individuals drew attention to their ears.

Pointed.

Of course they were fighting an elf.

And of course they had to elf step.

Luke instantly shot backwards off of a sudden protrusion of rock. The repositioning created a short diagonal between himself and the enemy, along which he kicked up and fired off sprays of rock bullets that exploded into dust regardless of whether or not they hit their mark. As the thick cloud of earth expanded, the executioner and bounty hunter promptly prepared another joint attack, the latter focusing especially on preparing a means of disarming their shared foe.

The two covered ground, preparing to strike, only for the blonde figure to let out a sudden groan of irritation and blocking their attacks long before they fell, sending the pair skirting back.

The individual, anticlimatically, started grumbling about something along the lines of "voiddamned morning" and "evil sunlight" before they let their maul free fall to the ground, essentially smashing a dark gaping maw into reality and stepping inside.

With an evidentally strained smile, they piped up, "I'll see you tomorrow!," before reality fixed itself and they simply...vanished.

Luke and Lea glanced eachother before the latter shrugged.

That was one way to waste their night.

Meanwhile, in Lamplight, under the arena, sat one very bored fugitive.

"Man, I wanna kick Damon in the face right now. Motherf*cker stole my damn M-80s too. Was gonna sell some..." muttered Ryan, as she looked at her feet.

She was stuck in a dingy little cell, waiting to get sent to the wardens. There wasn't even a window, the bastards.

This has got to be her worst idea yet.

The recently discovered small body that she discovered she could disguise into was hard to control, janky, but absolutely adorable. When she first did the thing, her first instinct was to feel to see if her eye was back.

It wasn't. Womp womp.

Well, she looked different enough, she looked like a standard apprentice at the Academy, after she mugged one for their robes (in reality she bribed them).

She loomed at those pristine gates of the arena, forever locked. It was rare to ever get an arena match going, considering the absolutely terrible schedule of them. Which was perfect for her, since no one would suspect her sneaking about.

Which was what she was doing, in.... the sewers. Stereotypical, but she had a hastily sketched out map that she hit in her right sleeve, since she had plenty of thumbtacks to hold it there. Don't ask.

Though, she wasn't sure if she could even find the prison her new best friend was in; she was hesitant to try each and every opening in case she got jumped by the guard.

Ryan was still in her cell, bored out of her skull.

"Don't prisoners usually get TVs or something? This is cruel, and unusual, and I hate it. And I hate Damon too. And I hate bounty hunters, and bracelets, and... First chance I get, I'm gonna... I'm gonna..."

She didn't feel like finishing her empty threat.

"This sucks."

There was the grinding of metal, before a familiar head of ash gray hair appeared from the nearby floor vent. She didn't peak too much, in case there was somebody else there.

"Did I hit the right vent?" she murmured, and her voice was a pitch or two higher. "My head hurts..."

"A kid?" asked Ryan, who broke out of her thoughts.

She sat up, and walked over to the grate.

"You look familiar..."

Merikki promptly pointed to the itty-bitty spiky witch hat on her head as she clamoured out of the vent. She took a moment to dust herself off, which took a while due to her refusal to use the right arm.

She was... about half the height of who Ryan thought of. Almost exactly half, funnily enough.

"Uh, how'd you get in here?"

"How else do you think?" she replied grumpily. "Eugh, I feel filthy. I spent a solid hour or so trying to find this place, it's like a labyrinth down there."

She expelled a claw from the right arm, which was hopefully a surprise. Woah. She actually had an arm underneath that sleeve?

She sort of just snatched the lock and started an attempt at lockpicking.

"Wait, you're Merikki? What happened to being 8 feet tall and having sweet abs?"

"In the flesh, darling," she replied, growing increasingly frustrated at the lock. "Had to improvise since, well, they kiiiiiinda would know my face. Don't know how long this lasts, or how to go back, really."

She ended up breaking the claw, before in a fit of rage tugging the lock hard enough to bend the bar it was on. "F[BKK], that hurt-"

"Sweet, let's get outta here."

"Are you sure you can like, fit through that? I didn't exactly, y'know, break it... I'm not sure if I can."

The small witch bit her thumb, thinking. "Want me to try?"

"Nah, I got a lighter back at my place."

Ryan smirked.

"And anyways, you don't need to worry about me."

And so, Ryan slowly climbed into the grate.

Merikki hopped in after Ryan, making sure to close the grate as she did so.

Ryan heard Merikki mumble throughout the entire ordeal of going through the sewer, wincing each time a splash of sewer water hit her.

"I am so changing when I get back." she said.

"Same. If anything can actually fit me, small me or normal me."

And so, after making their anticlimactic pathetically easy escape, the two ended up at Ryan's air cooler base, where the aforementioned fugitive walked out wearing black cargo pants and a gray hoodie.

"Welp, I'm bored." she said as she swung around a new baseball bat. "What do you wanna do, Rikki?"

Merikki, still being small, ended up just stealing some of Ryan's clothes even if she didn't even fit in the slightest. She looked... strangely adorable, despite her fiery demeanor.

"Good question," she said, flumping face first into some form of cushion that I'm too lazy to remember the details for. "Honestly, I just wanna sleep for a hot sec. But we both know that ain't happenin'."

"Wanna go to that forest place? We could sell some fireworks."

Merikki lifted her head, her hair parted and messed up so it looked like both her proper eye and her missing eye socket was giving Ryan some serious side-eye. "Fireworks? In a forest." she said slowly, raising an eyebrow. "Isn't that the opposite of lying low?"

She did like the idea of cash, but not being indirectly responsible for a forest fire. But, she couldn't decline the look in Ryan's eye, so she sighed. "Fine, fine, just... let's be careful, yeah?"

"Sure, sure, let's just go."

And so, Ryan picked up another handful of firecrackers from the crate, and hopped off of the roof.

She grappled herself up to catch up with Ryan, though she made a note that she needed to quickly stop relying on the spooky arm. So, she just stayed behind Ryan as some sort of small bodyguard.

Back in the Academy dungeon, two guards had gotten into an argument outside Ryan's former cell.

"How hard is it to just watch a kid in a big cage?"

"I was on lunch break!"

"You're supposed to tell someone to take over your shift before you leave!"

"I told George to take over!"

"And did George arrive, Ted?"

"..."

"Exactly. It's our job to hold these multielementals here until we can send them to the wardens. Do you want to be the reason another 'Lamplight Incident' happens again?"

"Allie, they're just a kid, stop getting so pressed."

"The cause of the Lamplight Incident was an infant! And don't you 'Allie' me."

"Well excuuuuse me, princess-."

"What did you just call me?"

"I said-"

And within the span of 10 seconds, all of the nearby captives in their cells were chanting "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" as the two guards brawled on the ground.

In a tree within the Sylvian Forest, a boy yawned and stretched on one of its branches before rustling leaves out of surprisingly still neat hair. He quickly scaled down the tree and headed back to Gale and Breeze's cabin, making sure to shoot a glare at the tree that had launched him into air mid-nightmare along the way.

Meanwhile inside the cabin, a certain mute fugitive had already awakened, caught sight of the group's missing human companion, and simply let out a small annoyed sigh, flicking their tail. With a stretch and movement to grab their cloak, they made something for the others to eat for breakfast before setting out, seemingly intending to wander off again despite having a bounty over their head.

Frankly? They were used to it.

A few moments later, the door to the cabin quietly squeaked open as Zane stepped inside. Looking around, the boy quickly took note of Gale's absence. Seems like he had just missed the ivory.

April shuffled around in their cot, making a soft sound before slowly blinking awake. They spotted Zane already up and about and sighed heavily, opting to fall asleep again–they were clearly not an early bird.

A small smile made its way across Zane's face and the boy's shoulders shook in silent laughter.

Meanwhile, Breeze was still curled up in that uncomfortable looking position of hers. One leg was drawn up to her chest while the other was bent around the first to hold it in place. Her arms were crossed in an "X" and grabbing her legs, keeping her from adjusting them in her sleep, and she used her knee as a pillow while her wings folded around her like a blanket.

Despite having squashed herself as small as comfortable, it seems she had slept—and was still sleeping—quite soundly.

Zane's eyes shifted over to the half-tengu and he just looked on in confusion.

Then he remembered that he fell asleep in a tree, got launched out of it, and immediately fell asleep in another tree. He was in no position to judge.

Shrugging, the boy headed over to the bowls of breakfast.

Oh boy! Something!

Surprisingly, Zane was perfectly content with eating the mystery food.

...

He seemed to enjoy it too.

After finishing his food, Zane began balancing on one leg and swinging the other back and forth as he tried to figure out what to do next. Eventually, his eyes shifted to the empty cot he was supposed to be sleeping on, then looked at Breeze, who was comfortably curled up on the floor. Zane extended an open palm towards Breeze and a beam of turquoise essence carefully neared the sleeping tengu before enveloping her. Gently raising the sleeping Breeze into the air, the dual carefully guided them over to the empty cot and delicately placed them on the thin mattress. Finally, Zane headed out the front door once more and began walking around, seemingly looking for something.

Only a few moments later, April woke up again, rolling out of the cot and slumping on the cold floor–which helped them wake up even more. They quickly realized that both their nonverbal companion and Breeze's nonverbal sibling had disappeared, although to their relief, Breeze was still there, sound asleep in... Zane's cot?

They could have left us a note if they were planning to disappear.

They huffed, stretching out their wings and then noticed two bowls of... something in the room. It seemed edible.

...It was not edible, April decided, after hastily spitting out their first sip and downing a glass of water. They glowered at the something, kneeling down and writing Breeze a quick note on the thin sheet of snow over the ground. Hopefully Breeze didn't realize that 'going to go find the others" was just a mere excuse to get away from that thing. since April had the strange feeling that someone like Breeze would probably have a more positive reaction compared to theirs.

Those thoughts were brushed away from their mind as April perched on a high branch, keeping a careful eye out for bright green scarves or shadowy black cloaks.

What they saw however, was something much worse.

They nearly fell off the branch as their eyes locked on to two figures in the distance, practically submerged in the trees–they were so far away, and yet, April could see them.

The bounty hunters had followed them here.

April scrambled down the branch hurriedly–Breeze's solemn words came back to them as they did, only causing their panicking mind to grow worse.

"Well...it's only a matter of time until humans find this place."

"Then we'll all be in trouble."

I have to warn the others.

Elsewhere in the forest, Zane was traversing through the forest with a basket made out of vines and roots that was full of various berries, none of which were poisonous. At the moment though, instead of picking berries, the wizard was now curiously trailing after an Ivory TripTrop. While not as rare as before, the monster was still quite the sight to behold.

Suddenly, the TripTrop's ears pricked up and it looked around briefly before suddenly bolting away. Figuring that he accidentally scared the Ivory TripTrop off, a disappointed Zane went back to carefully picking edible, non-poisonous berries.

Little did the dual know, he wasn't the reason the ivory monster dashed away.

A further in the woods, ears pricked from beneath a hood, the fugitive turning just in time to see a TripTrop rush by. Eyes narrowing into slits, they drew out their fan and quickly boosted themselves into the branches above with short gusts of wind, retracing the TripTrop's steps with irritation, already setting their mind on the fact there's going to be trouble.

Hearing the distant rustling of branches and leaves, Zane looked up and to the right, and the boy immediately froze, unable to make out who the figure was. He quickly decided hiding was the best course of action and began traveling in the opposite direction.

And then he froze again.

A good distance away was an unfortunately recognizable pair.

Luke and his cat lady companion...er...what was her name again?

...wait, did she even introduce herself yet?

Rather rude if she hasn't.

With options running low, Zane promptly curled up into a ball on the ground as green essence swirled around him as he encapsulating himself and his basket in shrubbery.

Above him, having dully made note of his presence, Gale was perched in a branch, tail lashing beneath their cloak as they stayed hidden in the shadows of the branches, listening in to the pair's conversation.

"—I really don't see why you couldn't have talked things out. You wasted a whole night of tracking—"

"That individual seemed far from trustworthy, and with their combat abilities in mind—"

"They were a kid luke. The second one who handed your ass to you, or do I have to remind you of the punk we're tracking down?"

"...language."

"Oh look, the great almighty Luke is telling me off for my language as if he doesn't curse me off on a daily basis."

As the voices got closer, Zane found himself breathing less and less until he reached the point of practically holding his breath.

Not too far away, April was navigating through branches, unknowingly heading straight towards the bounty hunters. They stopped to wait on a branch and froze as they spotted a dark cloak hidden between the leaves ahead of them.

Gale? I need to warn them–

Voice rose from down below, and April went still, eyes wide. They shifted their wings to hide their vibrant colors, but couldn't avoid knocking one into a smaller branch of the same tree.

The leaves rustled around them, far too loud for anyone–especially a hunter–to dismiss.

Oh crap.

Both hunters immedietly froze, senses heightened and quickly making note, the felanoid of the two perking her ears.

Exchanging a knowing glance, the two began to approach, the girl's tail flicking just above the ground to avoid making noise.

Still unaware of what was going on around him, Zane decided that the bounty hunters had been around for long enough. He pushed his right index and middle fingers into the dirt, letting green elemental essence flow through them and into the ground.

Not too far away, a series of rustling noises could be heard in the trees before suddenly halting. The cause of the aforementioned rustling noises were a few roots that had burst from the ground and struck various tree branches before sinking back into the ground.

The felanoid in question kept her ears perked, having definitely heard the rustling but...the scent didn't line up, and neither did the distinct sound of breathing coming from a nearby 'bush.' Quite admittedly, she pounced in a rather cat-like manner, barreling her target out of their hiding place and effectively pinning down their every limb.

Only for her to blink.

"What were you doing there?"

Undoubtedly, pinned below her was none other than Zane, who, unlike his feathered companion, forgot to hold his breath.

Zane strained against the felanoid, trying and failing to break free from his captors' hold. Panic quickly set in as the boy began hyperventilating, eyes darting around wildly as he frantically looked for something, anything to get him out.

Frost began crawling along the ground underneath the frantic wizard, and various types of foliage began sprouting up around him, surrounded in green essence. The dual didn't even register what his magic was doing as he clawed at the ground and helplessly writhed in the grasp of his captor.

Suddenly, the ground erupted around the two as large plants and ice structures tore out of the ground, carelessly aiming in every direction, with some even crashing into each other. Tears began welling up in the wizard's eyes as he continuously tried and failed to break free, fear and hopelessness building up inside him. An icy mist began violently rushing around the general area, picking up and flinging around shards of ice, dirt, small rocks, and various other debris.

Suddenly, the dual went limp, passing out under the felanoid as all of the magical havoc died down.

Some rather unpleasant words were uttered under her breath as her ears pinned against her skull, her tail drooping as she waited for Luke's unhelpful commentary regarding the Ice Magic.

However, the Bounty Hunter's exhaustion demotivated any attempts at witticism or criticism, instead opting for a disapproving exhale followed by a short "hm."

Is this the part where I arrest him?

Am I supposed to arrest her too?

Why can't I remember? This is literally my job.

I hate my job sometimes. I don't owe it to Boardy to remember half of this s**t.

Who was that kid?

What was that magic?

I don't get paid enough for this.

Focus. If he's here...

He snapped his fingers, caging the dual to where he laid on the ground in a basket-like prison of roots, then proceeded to survey the area, predicting the mute's presence to entail the proximity of the avian or the original target.

A sigh of relief. Thankfully, the bounty hunter was a wee bit too tired to remember that it was literally the felanoid's job to deal with dual's, meaning the mute would get to live another day.

As soon as he came to his senses and escaped that is.

The executionist moved off, gaze searching the branches above for any source of movement, lips slightly parted to be able to taste the air, broadening her sense of smell. She could almost doubtedly detect both the avian and Ivory, the question was where exactly were they bidding, and if they would escape. Pausing and realizing she was the only one of the two who could last long without a night of sleep, they probably would all escape.

So, it was a matter of when.

A sigh of relief. Thankfully, the bounty hunter was a wee bit too tired to remember that it was literally the felanoid's job to deal with dual's, meaning the mute would get to live another day.

As soon as he came to his senses and escaped that is.

The executionist moved off, gaze searching the branches above for any source of movement, lips slightly parted to be able to taste the air, broadening her sense of smell. She could almost doubtedly detect both the avian and Ivory, the question was where exactly were they bidding, and if they would escape. Pausing and realizing she was the only one of the two who could last long without a night of sleep, they probably would all escape.

So, it was a matter of when.

The Bounty Hunter hissed strings of profanities as he struggled to wrestle the avian off of him, shielding his neck with a summoned arch of earth before returning the attack with a snatch to the throat of his own. With his other hand, he made for his staff which had clattered to the ground next to him, though not before gritting his teeth through a series of violent lightning shocks that threatened to force him into useless spasms.

April made a sound akin to that of a distressed bird, trying to rip Luke's hand away with their own–the lighting around them only intensified with their panic. Throughout all of it, they blindly kicked towards the bounty hunter, barely noticing whether their legs made impact or not–although given the close proximity, it wasn't hard to miss.

Somewhere between the kicks and the lightning, the Bounty Hunter managed to get his hand around his staff, still fighting through the shocks and subsequent involuntary effects to his muscular system to scratch a line across the ground with the closer tip. It was just in time that the line filled with green essence and promptly exploded into a burst of rock that shot into April just below the ribs, forcing them off of Luke as another lightning bolt quickly forced his staff hand open again.

April gasped in pain before they shook their head and shot up into the air, giving Luke a moment of respite from the lighting before they dived down towards him once again within seconds, too focused on terrorizing the bounty hunter to consider anything else—even the immense pain from what felt like severe internal damage.

Luke promptly dove towards his staff- again, earth rose to counter the avian's assault, though this time in the form of a wall that materialized just moments before impact.

Lea's tail lashed observing the ongoing onslaught from the safe spot of the field. Technically, she should do something. And frankly, unlike Like, she was actually trained to take down someone in flight. But now the question was—did she really want to?

She already was dragged into help catch one multi-elemental, she had no interest in adding another to the death row, especially since the kid wouldn't last a second against her in the arena. And then the bird? They weren't even a duel, just someone committing a minor misdemeanor that could easily be handled by going back to Skywatch or the Lamplight tax collector's office.

Not to mention these laws were stupid anyways, even though it was fun to be allowed to go all out on someone.

But, if she did leave Luke to handle it all alone, that'll be 'collaborating with fugitives' and seeing her record she would be joining both duels on the death row.

A sigh.

Well, she'll try not to hurt the bird too badly.

Ice Magic wasn't effective against Storm Magic, and she didn't want to wind up accidentally neutralizing the magic just barely keeping the bounty hunter from being killed, so she instead formed what appeared to be a weighted frozen chain, which she spun to gain momentum eyes narrowed and fixed on the form of the avian preparing to dive down.

Normally, she'll hook a winged opponent and dragged them down, so when she released the chain, launching it at April, she quickly reshaped it into a bolas, tangling up the avian and their wings so that they would drop out of flight. Again, no hurting them, so she ensured there'll be a snow bank to break their fall.

Meanwhile back in the cabin, Breeze wearily awoke, noting the breakfast that—yes, Zane, she appreciated much more than you—and as she happily chirped, quickly found the makeshift note.

At first she frowned, but seeing her sibling wasn't here and probably with them, they'll be fineeee.

And with that she finished her breakfast.

After a bit, she began to worry, considering maybe going after them. But the fey was seemingly more tired than she thought as she instantly flopped over and feel asleep. Minutes later, she jolted awake screaming something about an alley before realizing it was a rather lucid dream related to her prior concern, and that she never left.

So she weighed her options.

Go and help them at the risk of being added to the wanted list as an Ivory, or stay and continue dreaming about that terrifying...whatever it was.

She wound up going outside.

Yet, the moment she entered shrubbery she realized the singular flaw of her plan.

Where even are they?

And so she wandered aimlessly for a good while before hearing the avian screeching.

...ah.

After Lea’s attack, April thrashed in the snow, trying to untangle themselves with little to no success—they seemed to be making the situation worse, actually, as the more they moved the more it looked like their wings would snap off at any moment. There weren’t even any human sounds coming from them anymore—only bird-like shrieks and cries.

Mild concern emitting from the executioner, the avian quickly found themselves completely immobile, limbs having been frozen in place with a small burst of ice magic.

Just then, an explosion.

Emerging from the smoke were two figures, who appeared to look menacing.

Then one of them spoke.

"You guys wanna buy some fireworks?"

It was Ryan and Merikki.

However, instead of eager customers for their new firework business, Ryan and Merikki were greeted with the sight of a clearly sleep deprived Bounty Hunter, some sort of... cat lady (Ryan could distantly recall following her and another fugitive the previous day), and April, who was frozen on the ground and staring at Ryan and Merriki with a mix of relief and fear.

(The two of them could've sworn that the avian wasn't, well, an avian the last time they met, but that was a discussion for another time.)

There was also a rather suspicious dome of roots that clearly wasn't meant to be there, and the combination of all these things seemed to make the current situation very clear.

"Sweet, who're your friends?" asked Ryan, as she slowly pulled out her baseball bat.

April silently sighed, before shooting Ryan a pointed look and mouthing "bounty hunter" to her.

"Yep, thought so."

Ryan grinned, as she held her baseball bat, before running into the scene.

The green/gray-garbed Bounty Hunter watched with detached frustration as the renegade runner entered the fray, tapping his staff against the ground to produce a sinkhole and a catch wall on its far side where Ryan's next footfall landed.

How are things getting worse?

Why did I take this job?

Why did I have to be a trusted employee?

Why couldn't I just sit on my ass and never even qualify to deal with this?

I need the money.

I have a job to do.

Focus.

As her companion did so, Lea let out a frustrated sigh and cast April, surprisingly, an apologetic glance. Looking back at the newcomers, cyan began to form at her palm as she readied a spell.

Only to stop.

The executionist's ears were perked and upright, her right ear swiveling to pick up a noise that, quite abruptly, caused her to pounce on Luke in order to knock him to the ground, a sharp blast of wind cutting into the ground where he had stood.

That was one way to confirm the Ivory's presence.

Ryan stopped running immediately.

"The hell was that?" she asked.

April, still on the floor, quickly mouthed, "friend," to Ryan, not wanting Gale to be mistaken for anything else.

"Oh."

Ryan thought about it.

"Do they wanna buy some fireworks?"

If April could facepalm at the moment, they would. Instead, they shook their head ever so slightly and tried their best to not have a comically frustrated expression on their face.

Ryan turned back to Merikki, confused.

In lieu of the avian being unable to facepalm, a particularly hard—but mostly harmless—blast of wind sent them sprawling on their back. An amber gaze blinked from the dark, once, twice, before the branches above creaked, something being thrown out from the leaves just as they jumped down. What they had thrown stabbed into the ground around the bounty hunters, at first appearing to be knives, but upon closer observation, they were...feathers?

Breeze's black, their pastel, even a few of April's, undoubtedly being the feathers they stored when preening. They raised one hand, snapping twice—the first time, the ice keeping April in place dissipated, the second time, the feathers levitated from the ground, and it became apparent the individual had coated them with essence, appearing to be neutral magic.

Then they whistled, each feather immediately pointing at the the pair of bounty hunters before zipping at them, the executionist teleporting the two out just before they could be impaled. However, this meant the feathers continued on their course trajectory, stabbing into the nearby tree trunks and leaking sap.

The fey shrugged, recalling the feathers and now targeting the newcomers, gaze flicking to April as if to ask if they should kill them or not.

April frantically shook their head. "They're friends from Lamplight Town–and fugitives." Then, they glanced at Zane's root-cage. "Um..."

A sigh from beneath the cloak, probably from irritation at more humans being in the forest, before snapping to release Zane and hauling the unconcious wizard over their shoulder like a potato sack, the feathers remaining trained on Ryan and Merriki in distrust, yet not attacking.

Ryan just smirked and folded her arms.

"This is new."

The Ivory clearly didn't appreciate her attitude as half the feathers immediately flew at her, circling her neck.

Only for her to raise her hand and tap one.

The noises they made in reaction were even more concerning than usual.

April huffed, shaking their head. "Please don't... um, don't antagonize each other? We're all... we're... we're allies here, okay?"

Then they paused. "Um, Ryan, what are you guys doing here anyways?"

Before they could answer, however, there was a very loud "whaaa!" noise, followed by branch snapping, followed by infuriated chirping that could only be explained as cursing, followed by more branch snapping, before—Breeze, surprisingly—fell crashing through the canopy and splat in the middle of the clearing.

"Okay, I'm starting to think I'm outta the loop here." said Ryan. "The hell's going on?"

April glanced between Breeze, who was still on the ground, and Gale, who was watching Breeze with an unimpressed expression, before turning to Ryan and taking in a deep breath.

"Zane and I went to Firefly when we heard some sort of commotion in Lamplight Town that made us a little paranoid and we also went so I could unbind my wings without anyone seeing but before I could do that a Bounty Hunter–the man in the green outfit that you just saw–found us and started attacking, so Zane and I tried to run away but we were caught and Zane shot a firework to defend us, which didn't really work, but then the hunter's companion–the cat lady–showed up and kind of rescued us, before going to chase Gale, who I had ratted out earlier when trying to preserve our lives, but I felt really guilty later, so Zane and I went to help them, but we ended up crashing into an illusion-tree that's the entrance to this forest, and Gale led us to his home where we met Breeze, his sister, where we stayed for the night after learning a bit about the island and magic, and then just this morning, Gale and Zane left to do... something, I don't know, but then we ended up encountering the bounty hunters and got into a conflict, which you caught the tail end of–" They paused, for another breath of air. "–and now we're here."

They gave the two a moment to comprehend the hastily spoken words, only slightly panting.

"Now, um... what about you guys?"

"Uh... Merikki helped me escape from jail."

"It was piss easy to do so," Merikki said with a yawn. She was still in her itty bitty "disguise", and her yawn exposed her shark-like teeth. "They really need better security in that space," she growled further, though amusement danced in her words.

April blinked. “Why were you… in jail in the first place? And, um, Merikki, how… why are you… shorter?”

"Long story, blame Damon and the prison cell vents," said Ryan.

"Long f[BEEP]ng story that I'd rather not go into," Merikki said at the same time, stretching. The popping of bones could be heard with a groan of relief.

"So what's up with her?" asked Ryan, walking over to Breeze.

Merikki looked like she was still sleepy, rubbing her good eye. "Mmmh... with who?"

"The chick who fell out the sky?"

"...the what-?"

Ryan facepalmed.

"You're kidding."

At that, Gale immediately glared at the two. Meanwhile, the "chick" in question was faceplanted on the ground, mumbling something in the soil.

"MmmMMM!"

"What?"

"MMMM-MMMM!"

"Huh?"

She propped her hands against the floor, pulling herself out of the indent in the ground, "I SAID, FALSE ALARM!"

Gale promptly whacked her across the cranium with their tail.