Some days later, things started to feel normal again. Huitaca accepted Arlott as her apprentice, and she was doing great. Her transforming abilities were top notch. She had become able to make use of will in such a humble but powerful way, one wouldn't know she was just a beginner.

Also, Huitaca had returned to her human form at last, and she was gorgeous. Her face was serious but kind. Her skin was smooth with such a lovely bronze color. Her eyes were dark brown, almost black. But they could swallow you whole if you were to stare too deeply.

She was just stunningly beautiful.

But she was also merciless when teaching Arlott. Not as much as how Kiandra would just loose her temper, but Huitaca was far stricter.

“You have to maintain your posture here, in order to better guide your will,” she would constantly tell Arlott. “The image you have is too shallow. You will never get it to imprint on the plant.” She could do this for hours, and Arlott could keep up with her with a smile on her face.

Kiandra had yet to return. It seemed she was busier than the letter made us think. But at least, we didn’t need her much. Even though we really wanted to know if she would be able to help Breena.

Breena, on the other hand, was still sleeping. Her breathing was normal, and she had a healthy rose color and everything. If you simply looked at her, it was impossible to know she wasn’t waking up, no matter what.

I took care of her whenever I could. Whipping her sweat, changing her clothes from time to time. I just didn’t want to accept that she might be like that forever.

Although I would like to do it more often, taking care of Breena was not that common, as most of my time I was busy gathering will. Since Arlott and I bonded, my form stabilized a lot. She even told me I was even more beautiful now. But it was kind of biased coming from her.

Another thing that changed since I bonded with Arlott was that, whenever I got hurt, I would bleed. Huitaca said that our bond was strong enough to create a living-like body. This also meant that I could heal with time, and not only with will. This worried me for a long while, and it also made Arlott care for me in such a nice way.

At this time, we had gotten completely used to living in the jungle. The heat was not as annoying as it was at first, and at last I got used to all the animal noises. The worst things were the insects, but Arlott learned to use some magic to maintain bugs far away. That might have been the only reason could remain sane, as the damn things were everywhere.

In the end, the hut became a nice hideout, if you ask me. Of course, as always, as soon as you think that all is great, all goes to hell.

Just like last time, day suddenly turned to night. All noises disappeared, either animal or bug, and even we stopped making any sound. Then, one by one, portals began appearing all over the place.

One after the other, big portals spewing things that should never be seen on the living realm.

Some of those things we already knew; mannequins and ghouls, as always, with a reaper and wraith here and there. But there were more. Some hulking things at, least twice as big as the mannequins, and even broader shoulders. From over them, ghoulish crows quickly flew towards us.

A murder of the birds dived at us faster than we could respond to. Or so I thought until Huitaca got a barrier up before they could arrive. Though the crows bumped it, they only stopped momentarily. 

The crows attacked the barrier with their claws. I could see how that strained Huitaca. Every slash the barrier took, every attack the birds did, it all took a part of Huitaca’s will. So, Arlott and I tried giving her some of ours.

Soon, the hulking monsters arrived with the others. Every hit they did cracked the barrier for a short moment. Luckily, they were too slow to do any significant damage. But it took a lot of will to keep fixing the barrier. And with every hole, some of the monsters got inside, so I had to stop those ones.

As we tried to hold them off, more and more of those portals opened, letting more monsters in. They became so many, the trees began falling as they trampled everything in their path. 

But we stood.

“How can we escape?!” Arlott shouted over the deafening sounds of all the monster and crows’ riot.

“Someone go get Bree--” Before Huitaca could finish, the shield flickered violently, and then shattered in an explosion of light.

I got blown away from Arlott and Huitaca. But I was the first one to recover. 

All the monsters that were close to us were on the floor. Some of them turned into charred bodies, burned by Huitaca’s will. But most of them were just knocked out. I looked at Arlott, she was on the floor holding her forehead with one hand. I could see blood running down her other hand.

But when I looked at Huitaca, I understood what happened.

Huitaca was on the floor, flickering between her human and owl form on the floor, and blood coming from a big wound she had on her back. Breena was standing beside her, holding a weird, bloodied knife in her hand.

The portals kept appearing around us. From one of them came in Brand, in his demonic form. Breena walked directly to him.

“Breena, why?!” I cried at her. She stopped and turned around, showing a big and scary grin on her face. But her eyes were emotionless and hollow, as if there was nothing behind them. It became apparent that the creature we took out when her soul and body fused wasn’t the only thing Brand put inside her body.

I looked around and noticed that the monsters were recovering. More of them kept coming out from the portals, growing their numbers. I took a second to think what to do, and running was all that came to mind.

I ran to Arlott and grabbed her by the waist. Then, I grabbed Huitaca as quickly as I could. She had fully turned back into her owl form.

As I held onto Arlott and Huitaca in a more comfortable way, I looked at Breena to see if I could take her again. But if I had tried anything, I would have lost my opportunity to leave.

We were almost surrounded, so I took a last glance at Breena beside Brand and began running.

At first I didn’t know where to run to, so I just went to the village near us. Most of the monsters were already on their feet, but I could push through where there were almost no giant ones. The crows pecked at me as I ran away, but I protected Arlott and Huitaca until I got to a part of the forest that was not destroyed by the horde of monsters.

With every stride I took, a new portal appeared and more of those creepy creatures followed me.

At some point, Arlott woke up and I stopped for a second to regain my breath.

“Where are we going now?” Arlott asked, standing up beside me.

“To the village,” I said as if it was the obvious answer. “We can get some help there.” But Arlott made me see my mistake really fast.

“Are you crazy?!” She yelled. “What could a small village of non witches do about a sea of monsters that destroy everything on their path?”

I opened and closed my mouth like a fish outside of the water. I had no answer to that question

“Let me think.” Arlott paused to think for a little while. “We can only run far enough until their portals stop appearing near us.”

We started to run once more but soon Arlott ended up staying behind, as I was a lot faster than her. The monsters were catching on to us quickly. I offered her my back, which she accepted immediately, and we continued running.

We kept going, but suddenly, a portal opened right in front of us. As I was running really fast, I bumped into the monster that came through the portal, falling into the other side.

As we crossed the portal, we arrived at a small city. We were on a hill on the border of it, right beside some colorful houses that didn’t look taller than two stories high. So, even though the hill was not very high, we could see most of the city from there.

I picked Huitaca from where she had fallen. She screeched with what little strength she had remaining. I asked Arlott to grab her, as I prepared my claws to take down the monsters on this side of the portal.

Reapers fell as quickly as mannequins and ghouls. Wraiths were no match to the wrath I had at that moment. Every scratch and slash took something with it. Not even the faster crows could evade my anger. Until one of the giant ones stood in front of me.

It was enormous, and my claws did almost nothing to it. At least, it was slow so it couldn’t get a hold of me. That, until the crows began blocking my view, and a fist about half my size hit me on the ribs, taking out all the air I had. I flew some yards until I hit the ground and couldn’t move.

Thinking about helping Arlott, I tried to gather the little will I had left to stand and continue. But I just couldn’t get up.

After what seemed like ages, I got to open my eyes and saw Arlott hovering some distance from the floor. Bushes everywhere began growing, trapping everything on their path. Only the crows were fast enough to escape. But the giant remained unaffected, as it just couldn’t care less about the plants. And it started to approach Arlott.

With a lot of effort, I got up and ran as if my life depended on it, but it was worse. Arlott’s life was the one in danger. I jumped with all my strength, getting to Arlott just as the giant punched her, so I took almost all of the damage from it.

I ended up on the floor gasping for air once again. But this time, I felt a little warmth getting into me.

Arlott was there, giving me the will she could. But I also saw Huitaca near us, and gestured at her, unable to talk at the moment. Arlott saw my gesture and, with sadness in her eyes, went to try and heal Huitaca, who kept losing blood.

I got up. The will Arlott gave me was enough to move. Still, I could feel some ribs broken, and a pain I kind of missed to be honest.

Charging once again at the giant, I went for its back. It paid off, as it wasn’t flexible enough to get a hold of me. But the crows kept on attacking me anyway. I popped my claws out and modified my form to be more panther-like and have more strength, as Huitaca had taught me. With hands that were closer to giant feline paws, I ravished the giant’s back until it fell on its face.

The crows took this opportunity to attack me as savagely as they could. But after taking down what threatened Arlott, I recovered my strength. I roared with such strength, most of the crows fell to the floor, stunned.

#

 

Kiandra was grabbing all the books she had gathered in the past month or so. She needed to go see Istas and Arlott, who were calling her.

She had left a signal on the letter. It would trigger only once, and only if they opened when they needed to go fight Saxen. So, it was an emergency. 

But she couldn’t be quicker, she tried to get earlier but she had some problems too.

She heard an explosion on the first floor, and quickly began to open a portal to wherever it took her, as long as it was as far away as her will would let her.

The door opened and some reddish creatures were on the other side. They looked inside with precaution, but seeing she wasn’t more than a woman with lots of books with her, they started rushing in. 

As soon as they entered the room, a book got one of the demons on the head. It fell to the floor, holding its hands on the place where the book had hit.

The others stopped for a second, but soon regretted doing so, as a portal opened beside Kiandra. She quickly stepped inside, and the portal closed, with the demons still trying to grab her.

She had escaped once again.