Todd called on his Runes. His body started to turn a pinkish-red as his Body Imbuements activated. His bracelets sparked and a swirling mote of fire formed in each of his hands.

“It looks like it’s got thick feathers. They’re probably going to be a good defense,” Todd said as the monster watched them warily. Despite its cry, it hadn’t actually moved from the spot it was standing in. “Isabel, try to keep its attention. I’ll aim for its eyes.”

Stone slithered up from the ground, running up Isabel’s legs and forming armor around her body. She pressed a hand to her chest and drew out her spear, grabbing it with one hand and reaching down with the other.

A flat rock rose up from beneath the ground forming into a shield around her arm. Cracks of blue light broke through her armor as she lifted the shield with a grunt, holding it out before her.

Emily’s ice bow materialized in her hands and she reached for an arrow, starting to draw the string back. Todd sent his bolt of fire streaking off toward the Beakfoot. It flinched back, avoiding the spell and opening its mouth in another screech.

The monster leapt from its nest, crashing to the ground before them and charging. Emily’s eyes widened and she prepared to dodge, but Isabel didn’t let the monster finish its charge. She met it, bracing her shield against the ground.

Rock flowed up behind her, forming supports and bracing the wall of stone. Noah kept his magic ready, but he needn’t have worried. The Beakfoot slammed into Isabel, sending a tremor down her defenses but failing to smash through them. Isabel thrust her spear at the monster and it bit deep into its stomach.

The Beakfoot screamed in pain, and Todd hit it straight in the mouth with a beam of fire. Its cry cut off, the Beakfoot hissed in pain and staggered back, flapping its wings in pain. A pillar of stone erupted from the ground beneath Isabel, shattering against the monster’s beak and knocking it back.

Emily reached down to draw an arrow and took aim, but Isabel was between her and the monster. Even though the Beakfoot was much taller than Noah, it had lowered its body into a squat to better reach Isabel. With Isabel's increased height from her stone armor and the speed that both of them were moving at, taking a shot would be too dangerous. She pressed her lips together and ran toward the side, trying to get a better angle on it. The Beakfoot spotted her movement and spun toward her, abandoning Isabel as it charged at Emily.

The monster moved with surprising speed on the ground. Moxie and Noah both tensed, getting ready to intervene. Even though Emily had a shield while the others didn’t, the Beakfoot was a big opponent and it wasn’t using any Runic magic.

Todd’s legs pumped and steam rose from his body as he sprinted for the Beakfoot. He leapt into the air, his bracelets sparking and his fists erupting in flames. He brought his hands down together into the back of the Beakfoot’s head.

The blow connected with a loud crack. The Beakfoot pitched forward, crashing to the ground. Todd tried to right himself in the air, but he suddenly stiffened. He hit the ground in an awkward roll, coming to a stop against a tree amidst a string of curses.

Todd pushed himself upright, the flames covering his hands sputtering out as he pressed a hand to his neck with a pained grimace. Isabel sent him a worried glance.

“I’m fine,” Todd snapped. “Focus on the monster.”

Isabel nodded. She turned back to the Beakfoot as it pushed itself upright, the back of its head smoking. Emily drew her arrow back for the third time, taking aim at the monster and letting it fire off.

The Beakfoot lurched to the side, avoiding the arrow. It lunged toward Emily, baring its teeth in an attempt to bite at her. Emily jumped back, going for another arrow, but she didn’t get a chance to draw it.

The ground beneath Isabel pushed her forward like she was surfing across a wave of rock, and she drove herself into the large monster’s side. With the extra speed and weight of her rock armor, she had enough force to throw the large bird to the ground. It squawked in displeasure, batting its wings at Isabel, but she pressed down on it with her shield.

Emily’s arrow froze at her fingertips as she tried to take aim, but it was impossible to get a good shot with Isabel and the monster so close together. Isabel pulled back and jabbed her spear into the monster, inflicting another wound near its stomach.

Screeching in pain and fury, the Beakfoot drove its namesake into Isabel. Her shield cracked and she was thrown back. She hit the ground with a pained grunt, but pillars of stone pushed her back upright.

Her armor is too unwieldy for her to stand up on her own, so she uses the stone to do it for her. Smart.

As the Beakfoot turned its attention away from Isabel again, Todd fired another bolt of flame into the back of its head. It screeched in pain and spun toward him. Emily aimed her bow – and Isabel charged it again.

Emily was forced to lower her weapon once more, irritation passing over her features as Isabel slammed into the bird like a freight train. They went down in a bundle of limbs and stone. This time, when Isabel brought her spear down, she didn’t aim for its chest.

The glowing weapon punched into the Beakfoot’s eye, pinning its head to the ground. Thrashing once, it went limp. Isabel pushed herself upright, using the spear as a crutch, as her armor melted off and sank back into the ground.

“Nice!” Todd crowed, walking up to stand beside her. He was still rubbing his neck, and Noah could tell his gait was awkward. The injury to his neck was still getting to him, and it was a lot more than he was letting on. “Good job, Isabel.”

“You and Emily kept it distracted,” Isabel replied, letting her spear fizzle out. She looked back to the group of teachers. “How did we do?”

“Well, you killed it,” Noah said. “Although I will say I think you rushed it a little. There’s something to be said about taking a monster out quickly, before it can fight back, but you didn’t quite execute it and it got a chance to fight back. In that scenario, I’d try to figure out exactly what it’s capable of before going all in. If it had a stronger offensive attack, one of you might have gotten hurt. It would be best if you gauged its strength safely first, then fully engaged once you had a good grasp of what it could do. Also, your teamwork needs some serious improvement. Individually, you did fine. But it was more like separate groups fighting rather than a single unit.”

“I agree,” Moxie said. “Good distractions though, Todd. You might need to work on getting something that hits a bit harder, though. I’ve seen Fire magic be pretty destructive, but your spells aren’t hitting as hard as I feel like they should be.”

“I'm just used to fighting with only Isabel, but I'll keep that in mind. I think I put a bit too much power into my Body Imbuements. I was planning on being a close range fighter, but…” Todd rubbed his neck again, and his expression flickered for a moment as a crack of disappointment broke through his positive shell. It was gone an instant later as Todd gave them a sheepish grin. “I’ll be fine once I get some more Runes or fill my current ones up more, I think.”

Will you? If you want to be close range, that neck injury is going to be a serious opening for anything that’s intelligent enough to notice and take advantage of it.

Noah chewed his lower lip. Isabel was coming into her powers very well, but Todd was floundering, and it was clear he was just trying to keep a straight face to make sure none of them felt bad. He needed to find a way to help the boy.

And Todd wasn’t the only one. Emily stood off to the side, her face overcast. She’d done little to help in the fight, and she knew it. Todd and Isabel fought perfectly together, but once again she’d been reminded that she was an outsider.

“The clearing is ours!” Lee crowed, breaking the moment of awkward silence. “In celebration, let’s eat this. I’ll show you how to pluck its feathers.”

She strode up to the monster and started ripping handfuls of its feathers out – taking large chunks of flesh with each pull. All the students watched her in a mixture of shock, amusement, and mild horror.

Noah exchanged a glance with Moxie, then took a step closer to her and lowered his voice to take advantage of the moment of distraction.

“Emily and Todd are going to need some help,” Noah said in a low tone.

“Yeah. Todd’s neck injury is a lot worse than he’s letting on, but I don’t have access to anything that can fix it. Lower quality healing potions can occasionally fail to properly heal wounds. It looks like his nerves got messed up, and fixing them would need a really expensive potion to undo the effects of the other one. I’ll look into where we can get one.”

Noah bit his lip and nodded. If Moxie said it was expensive, then it was probably very expensive. He’d eventually find a way to get it for Todd, of course, but Noah needed to make sure the boy didn’t fall into depression or fall too far behind in the meantime.

“And Emily…” Moxie trailed off and she looked to the side. She suddenly looked tired, like she’d been carrying a heavy weight on her shoulders. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t make friends for Emily, and she’s not clicking with Todd and Isabel very well. I thought things were going fine during the trip, but as soon as we all got back, it feels like things are worse than they were before.”

“It might be that she’s jealous of Isabel and Todd, and they’re unintentionally stonewalling her because they’re just so used to each other’s company,” Noah said. “And on top of that, you normally give all your attention to Emily, don’t you? But now she’s got to share, so it could feel like everyone’s becoming distant.”

“She doesn’t care that much about me. I’m just her teacher.”

“You’re more than that,” Noah said. “But I think her problem is more than that too, if I’m being honest. You’re right – she isn’t clicking with them well. If we force them to be friends or work together, that’ll just make things worse. Working as a team is important, but it stems from being able to find common ground. Isabel and Todd aren't doing much better there either.”

“I don’t think I’m the best person to give advice about making friends or working together,” Moxie said with a disappointed expression. “I don’t know how to help her.”

“For now, we shouldn’t do anything. The more we interfere, the more artificial anything will feel. Hopefully this training is a good opportunity for that, though.”

Moxie nodded. “Yeah. I’m just worried. Emily isn’t used to working in groups, and she certainly isn’t used to getting shown up. The Torrin family made sure she was well treated whenever she went home. This is a really stark shift for her.”

“I don’t get the point of that,” Noah said, shaking his head. “If she’s main branch, shouldn’t they want to make sure she’s strong enough to defend herself? There’s no point in pampering her.”

Moxie just shrugged in response. “I wish I knew, but they didn’t give me much leeway with what I was allowed to do. I suppose they wanted to make sure she didn’t get hurt.”

They both looked back at Emily, who was standing on side of the Beakfoot opposite to the other three, her shoulders slightly hunched as she watched Lee tear it apart.

“Do you think this is my fault?” Moxie asked. “Maybe I should have tried to get her to work with more students, even if the Torrin family said otherwise. I’ve held her back.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Noah replied. “We saw her fighting against the Snufflers. Emily is talented. She just doesn’t know how to work with other people yet, but we’ve got a lot of time to work on that. I’m sure we’ll figure something out. Besides, Isabel and Todd need to learn how to play nice with people that aren’t each other.”

“Yeah,” Moxie muttered, looking back at Emily with a sad expression. “I hope so. I don’t want her to end up like how I was.”

“You still only have two friends.” Noah flicked Moxie in the shoulder and gave her a wry grin. “You’ve got a ways to go yourself, Mrs. I Don’t Have Any Friends.”

Moxie reddened. “Shut up.”

All the students suddenly started to yell in anger as Lee mistakenly ripped the throat of the Beakfoot out, spraying blood everywhere. Lee looked up, her face painted red, and grinned sheepishly at everyone as they scrambled to get away from her.

“Well,” Noah drawled, “traumatic events have a way of making people bond. And, with Lee around, I think we’ll probably get the kids their fair share of that.”

“Your plan is to traumatize them into becoming friends?”

“It worked for us, didn’t it?”

“I almost feel sorry for them,” Moxie muttered. “You’re sure we shouldn’t just interfere right now and tell them to change things up? If we straight up told them, it might fix the issue.”

“Or it’ll end up isolating Emily further,” Noah said. “We’ll do that if we have to, but let’s give them a chance to work things out themselves. You can’t force anyone to be friends, but you sure can put them in a situation where it helps. But yeah, if that doesn’t work, then we’re mandating some friendship.”

Moxie shrugged and gave him a nod. “If that’s what you think, then we’ll go with it. You’ve got more experience there than I do.”

Noah nodded idly, hoping that he was right. One way or another, he was sure of one thing. This was going to be an interesting few weeks.