If Kellen had any lingering doubts he was dreaming, the sight of the very real bear roaring and lumbering toward them wiped them from his mind.

“Run!”

“What do you think I’m doing?” By the time Kellen turned around, Vex was already a short distance ahead of him and a bat once more, his furry little wings flapping as fast as they could.

Kellen ran as fast as he could, back up the slope of the hill. In the back of his mind, he wondered why the woman he’d seen running out of the trees ahead of the bear hadn’t caught up to him. He glanced back and couldn’t believe what he saw.

The woman wasn’t running. She’d stopped on Kellen’s side of the stream and faced the bear. Rooted by amazement at what he was seeing, Kellen stopped to watch. The woman raised her bow, drawing an arrow from her pack as she did so. Even in the daylight and several yards away, the arrowhead glowed with a bright yellow light.

Taking aim, she fired. A yellow of light arc trailed the arrow and it struck the bear in the shoulder just as it reared up on its hind legs. Kellen was surprised to see the bear stumble backward from the single hit.

But size aside, this was no normal bear. It’s turquoise, crystaline claws were as long as Kellen’s forearms. When it dropped to all fours, Kellen noticed a series of stalagmites growing out of its back like quills, made from the same crystal substance. Its fur was a matted gray and two long crystal fangs jutted out of its mouth like a saber tooth tiger.

In the time Kellen looked over the bear, two things happened: the woman fired three more arrows from her bow and the bear, bothered by them like a bee sting might bother a person, decided it had enough of the pesky arrows.

“Run!” Kellen shouted, knowing as he said it there was no way they could outrun the bear any more than he could wrestle it to the ground.

The woman ignored him, calmly firing two more shots, both of which bounced off the bear’s head as if they’d struck stone. The great bear roared and advanced at a steady walk, heedless of the projectiles.

“I don’t think she’s listening to you,” Vex said. “That’s a Guardian level Mana Beast. And she’s no Beastcaller. She doesn’t stand a chance.”

As much as Kellen didn’t want to be eaten, he also didn’t want to see someone else eaten, either. He cast his eyes around, looking for a rock or a stick — anything he might be able to use to distract the bear. The cottonwood trees were old and well established. If they could make it to a tree, they could climb out of reach.

“We need to distract it,” Kellen said to Vex.

The little Mana Beast flew down the hill in a flash of cream fur. “On it!”

“No, Vex — wait!”

Although every instinct screamed at him to run the other way, Kellen followed.

Already to the stream, Vex shot past the woman, dispersing the trails of yellow light fading in the air from her arrows. As he flew, a golden circle formed around Vex. He struck the bear in the head at full tilt and the enraged beast’s head snapped to the side. Roaring, it rose on its back two legs again, swatting at Vex as he flitted around its head, shooting triangular blasts of golden light from his mouth.

If Kellen hadn’t expected to die at any second, he would have been impressed at the display. As it was, he stumbled to a halt long enough to grab the woman by the wrist. He pulled her toward the trees, ignoring the fact that her skin was a slate blue color.

“Hurry! We’ve got —“

In the next instant, the woman jerked from his grasp. She’d also dropped her bow and somehow had a knife in her hand. Kellen stumbled backward and fell hard on the ground as she sliced the air where he’d been standing a moment before.

“This is my hunt!” she hissed. “Do not interfere!”

“I was just trying to…help.”

Kellen’s words died on his lips as the woman took off at a sprint toward the crystaline bear and Vex. “Are you crazy?” he shouted after her.

Meanwhile, Vex continued to pepper the bear with blasts of golden light. Kellen gave the fox credit for his bravery, but the attacks didn’t seem to be doing anything more than enraging the bear further. The next moment, a heavy paw struck Vex like a badminton racket hitting a birdie and the little Mana Beast sailed through the air toward Kellen.

Running underneath the falling, tumbling Vex, Kellen dove and caught the fox in his arms, smacking his elbows and ribs hard on the rocks in the stream in the process. “Are you okay?” he asked Vex, who was back in his fox form.

“That didn’t feel so good,” Vex groaned. He didn’t look like he’d be fighting even a wet paper bag anytime soon.

Kellen struggled to his feet with Vex in his arms. A short distance away — too close for comfort — the woman darted between swings from the tree-trunk-sized arms of the bear, slashing with her knife and shouting. It was obvious she would get herself killed in short order if something didn’t happen.

Even as he reached down for a rock, Kellen wondered if he should leave her to die. She’d not only refused to run away from the bear, she’d also attacked him with a knife when he tried to help. Instead of making a break for it, he hauled the rock back, cradling Vex in his free arm, and threw.

The rock sailed through the air and landed a few feet in front of the bear with no effect.

“Did you mean to do that?” Vex asked.

Throwing back its head and bellowing in triumph, the bear dropped down on all fours, striking the ground like a polar bear breaking through ice. The earth rippled out in all directions from its front paws. Trees swayed and the ground danced. The shockwaves sent the woman flying into the air. Kellen’s feet flipped out from beneath him and he landed hard on his back. When he pushed himself up , he saw the woman still on the ground.

The bear advanced almost lazily while the woman struggled to her feet. Heart pounding, Kellen sat Vex down in the grass and ran toward beast and hunter, before he could thinking about what he was doing.

The woman lashed out with her knife. One swipe of the bear’s mighty paw sent her sailing through the air then rolling across the ground as easily as when it struck Vex. Out of the corner of his eyes, Kellen saw the woman rise and crumple back to the ground.

The bear roared again and stomped toward its fallen prize. “Hey!” Kellen shouted, waving his arms. He would have given anything for a bear spray warhead. “Hey bear!”

Ignoring him, the creature drew closer, just feet away from the woman. Kellen reached down and snagged a dead branch from the ground. He threw it like a spear and it clattered among the rock spikes across the bear’s back. The beast paid no notice.

Kellen felt entirely hopeless. If the woman died, it would be his fault. Between Kellen and the bear, she struggled to push herself up on shaking arms. It was clear she wouldn’t move in time. Just as clear, Kellen knew he wouldn’t reach her before the bear did.

The beast opened its mouth, a gaping maw of blue fangs as wide as a car window, big enough to bite the woman in half with one go.

“No,” Kellen yelled, waving his hands. In the back of his mind, he felt an intense pressure on the right side of his chest, directly opposite his heart. The pressure turned to pain, snatching Kellen’s breath away. Summoning the last of his energy as the bear stood over the woman and lowered its mouth, Kellen thrust his hands forward, screaming in desperation.

“STOP!”

A concave blast of translucent golden light burst from his palms. It struck the bear in its gaping mouth, shattering its two long saber teeth. The force flipped the creature onto its back and its roars of victory change to pained, surprised screams.

Kellen felt something draining from the right side of his chest, like cool water running into his stomach. He fell to his knees, sucking for air like a fish out of water. Ears ringing, he thought he heard Vex shouting for him. Black and white spots peppered his vision, which danced and rolled as if he were on a ship in stormy water, not on solid land.

Through the dizziness, he saw a half dozen or so riders thundering through the trees. Even to Kellen’s unfocused eyes, these people were like none he’d ever seen. Their skin was the same ashen blue as the hunter and they were dressed like plains warriors out of a Western movie.

As they closed in on the bear, they threw spears and shot arrows whose heads glowed with the same yellow light. In half a moment, the bear had several shafts buried in its exposed belly as it rolled like an upturned turtle to get its legs underneath it from Kellen’s attack. Back on its feet, the bear snapped and snarled, but it was surrounded. The riders showed no mercy, their circle of fearless horses bringing them just outside the reach of the bear’s claws and fangs as they stabbed and fired. His vision still dancing and unfocused, it looked to Kellen like the horses had long, rhino-like horns on their noses.

The bear gave a last high-pitched moan and fell to the ground. The next instant, a bolt of crackling blue light shot from the bear. It struck Kellen and Vex like lightning, briefly illuminating them in its cerulean aura before disappearing in a wink. Kellen’s chest pounded like he’d just downed a twelve pack of energy drinks and his hands, legs and neck twitched.

“That was awesome!”

Kellen looked down at the grass and saw two Vexes beaming up at him, eyes wide and little mouths upturned in a smile.

“Told you you could use mana,” both Vexes said, one echoing the other.

A sudden wave of nausea struck Kellen. He closed his eyes, willing the world to stop spinning. It didn’t. He stumbled to all fours and threw up what little remained of the breakfast he’d eaten a lifetime ago on Earth.

“Oh, nasty!” From out of the darkness, Vex’s voice — now just a single instance — cut through the din of human shouts, screaming horses and enraged, dying bear.

Kellen groaned and rolled over on his back, eyes squeezed shut. More than ever, he wanted this all to be a bad dream that ended. His body felt like he’d gone through a day of Navy Seal training before being dropped into an ice bath. Cold trickles of sweat ran down his face and every muscle pulsed and burned. Vex said something again and this time, it sounded like they were underwater.

“Did you hear me? That was amazing!” Vex’s voice shot through Kellens’ head like nail gun into a watermelon. A smashed watermelon that pounded in agonizing pain.

“If that was using mana,” Kellen groaned, forcing his eyes to open, “I never want to do it again.”

Kellen’s eyes focused on the hazy sky overhead. The pain ebbed just a little. He didn’t think he’d blacked out but had the feeling of waking from a nap and not knowing if he’d been asleep for five minutes or five hours. As the ringing in his ears subsided, he heard women talking, although he couldn’t make out what anyone said.

“I’m sure it’s only like that the first time,” Vex said. “Probably.”

Just thinking about sitting up made Kellen sick again, so he sucked in a deep breath. The pressure on the right side of his chest eased, replaced by a dull thumping, almost like a second heartbeat. At that moment, Vex decided it was a good idea to hop on Kellen’s chest. If the fox felt any lingering effects from being treated like a living softball, Kellen couldn’t tell.

“Did you see me?” Vex asked, his nose inches away from Kellen, who was forced to looked down his face at the Mana Beast. “We’re going to be a pretty great team, I can already — oh, looks like we’ve got company.”

Kellen didn’t bother attempting to get up. He wasn’t going anywhere in his current state. If the blue people wanted to kill him, they could do it where he was. Dying seemed a preferable option compared to how he felt.

Suddenly, three women appeared above him. Each wore a stern expression, staring down at him like something they’d just stepped in that smelled bad. Aside from their pale blue-gray skin, all three had black hair, braided with beads and feathers. The side of one woman’s head was shaved to the skin, and a small bone piercing jutted through one of her eyebrows. All had faces painted with a variety of red-brown symbols mixed with tattoos and scarification symbols. A trio of glowing yellow spearheads appeared inches from Kellen’s nose.

“Do not move, Beastcaller.”