I'm already turning when Emily screams. My eyes lock on her, then the thing behind her.

At the sight, my mind lurches to combat. Everything moves in slow motion for just an instant as I accelerate, blood rushing, with a sharp inhale. The thing is running straight toward her at an impossibly fast speed. It's not that big, the size of a child. About the same size as Emily herself. It moves on all fours. I can see the glint of long, curved claws, while what should be fur of some sort flares out all around it in razor sharp spikes.

I'm already running. "Monster!" she shouts, scrambling away far too slowly, on all fours. I'm too far away, its long, bounding strides have it on top of her already. It grabs her shoulders with its long, curved claws. I can hear the slice and smell the blood as the claws cut into her.

Emily is going to die.

She starts to scream in pain as it leans down, fangs parting directly in her face. Then it shifts, aiming for her throat. With all of the mana in my body, I rush as fast as possible.

It bites down, but with one leap, I get my arm out first.

The fangs sink into my flesh, boosted to the limit with mana. I barely keep it from her neck. I yank my arm upward, lifting the monster's face while I bring my other fist up into its gut with everything I have. Despite all the mana I pump into them, my arm and shoulder scream on contact with the body like a rock. It howls, vile breath choking me as I try to wrench it off my arm. I can already feel something bad inside me. I lurch backward, just in time to avoid it attempting to impale me through my sides with its long claws.

I swing a kick upward into its face and I twist my right arm, screaming from the agony as its long fangs shred my flesh and my blood sprays out. But it works, I manage to break its jaw so it will release me. Then shift to the side to block Emily and I throw my arms up to defend. The next moment, the long quill-like spikes on its back dart forward. I force my mana well to overflow, filling every part of my body with fresh mana just as the spikes hit me. They don't do much beyond breaking the skin a little with all the mana I'm using now. However, I can't block all of them, and hear Emily cry out as a few get past and hit her instead.

I grab the monster and turn, dragging it away with me as I start to run. I have to draw it away from her. Its talons rake across my back once and I grit my teeth before breaking into a flat sprint. I can hear it tearing through the brush after me, enraged screams coming at my heels.

With just this little bit of space, I finally have the presence of mind to think beyond the next instant of combat. This is a monster? Why is it so terrifying?! I have to force down the terror so I don't lock up and trip over something, and keep running with all my boosted might. But there's something wrong. A swarm of dark, corrupted, bad mana is flowing in from my wounds. It has poisonous mana or something? I had no idea such a thing existed, but it's already attacking me inside. I don't have time to deal with something like this!

Emily can't deal with it at all!

No wait, this monster has mana? Like me? Because we're monsters?

No, I have to get rid of this somehow so I can help Emily!

My mind is a mess as I run. Maven, go to Emily! I scream mentally to send him over to her location. Maybe I can do something through him, or at least use him to find her again once I lose the monster.

Then its claws swipe across my back as I run, just barely grazing past my skin and tearing long gashes into the back of my robe. I can't outrun this thing at all! Wait, I'm running out of the forest. Just like last time, I'm heading toward the guards. They're armed, they're trained, they should be able to fight something like this, right? I have absolutely no idea, but I'm already running toward the gate. At a full sprint like this, I'll be there in no time at all.

So I just keep running. I'm not even out of breath. My arms and legs are pumping and burning like crazy, and I'm probably overusing my mana, but I'm still taking nice deep breaths as I tear through the forest at maximum speed. One less thing to worry about.

Then I break from the trees, the gate not far away. "Help!" I scream, waving my arms. I can see the guards freaking out. The few people on the road near the gate dive far out of the way. I hear everyone yelling 'monster,' and the guards rush out of the gate, forming into a line.

"Steady!" one shouts. "Spears!" They brandish their spears, level with me and the monster. They leave just a small gap in the center, which I aim for. Monster right behind, I lower my body, sliding on my back just before I reach the spears so they can close the small gap. My teeth grit with pain from the rough road digging into the wound on my back, but I ignore it. I roll side to side while sliding to slip between their legs and come out the other side of their formation. There are still guards rushing from the gate to join the eight or so already standing on the line. My eyes stop on one person, the mess of brown hair catching my attention for an instant. It's Francis, he was at this gate now?

With a push of my hands, I'm back on my feet. I spin on a heel while still sliding across the rough gravel. Once I finally kill my momentum sliding backward, I kick off again to head back the other way, running to skirt around the men now fighting and attempting to encircle the monster with their spears.

It lashes out repeatedly, long claws and spines flaring in every direction, giving the men trouble even at spear range. They are obviously keeping their distance, attempting to overwhelm it with cautious attacks from all sides. Then I pass the group, heading back toward the forest.

"Wait!" I hear one call after me, but then he grunts. I glance to see him struggling to resist the monster ramming into that side of their encirclement.

"I have to help Emily!" I shout back as I keep running.

"I'll go!" Francis yells to the other guards, and I can hear his heavy footfalls as he chases after me.

I stumble as I run, gritting my teeth and lashing out at the intruding mana with flailing attacks to destroy it. It's making it hard to move right, interfering with my body wherever it goes. Under my fierce barrage, it can't put up much of a fight. I grab the absolute mana, completely unaffected by the horrible mana, and furiously smash it over and over again, destroying the poison completely, until there's no trace of it left. Then I can really run properly. I tear through the trees, hearing even Francis' long strides, barely able to keep up with me.

I head straight back for Maven, who is sitting with Emily. It looks like she's barely conscious. I mentally survey the wounds while running. She has three bad cuts in each of her shoulders from the claws, as well as five punctures across her arms and legs from the spines. At least I was able to block it from hitting her anywhere vital. But still, these wounds, for a normal person...

I'm shaking, but just keep trying to run faster, no matter how much my body protests. Then my eyes go wide. A large animal is lumbering toward Emily, probably drawn by the strong scent of blood. A bear?! It's not far now. I somehow feel like I move faster, but my legs are on fire. Even my breath, fine until now, starts to turn ragged as I push myself way too far. Maven retreats into a tree as the bear comes near. Through him, I can see it approach Emily, sniff her a few times, and then begin to lean down.

I blow past the last few trees between us, and leap into the air. I don't have the time or presence of mind to hold back anything. I fly the entire distance between us, legs kicking out. They connect solidly with the side of the bear's head. I can distinctly feel every joint in my legs pop as I go flying back in the other direction. Even the bear is thrown away, crashing into a tree. It snorts loudly and disappears into the forest after the surprise attack.

Thankfully, Francis catches me before I go hurtling into a tree myself. We tumble to the ground before he recovers and gets us back on our feet. I wince, going down. I hurt my hips too. I shake my head violently, trying to shove down the flood of pain. At least I didn't break anything, I tell myself. I force my joints back into place with a strangled cry, then get back to my feet. I stumble through the pain, collapsing at Emily's side. Francis is asking me what's happening, but I don't have the time to answer him.

Just looking at her, tears fill my eyes. I ignore them and place a bloody hand on her, immediately reaching out with my mana to check her. Sure enough, she is flooded with poisonous mana. Her own tiny amount is quickly being destroyed.

I take a big breath, and pull with all of my might. Emily immediately goes limp as I suck every bit of mana out of her. I violently shove the absolute mana between hers and the invading poison, then pull hers safely away. It only takes an instant to crush the poison, then try deserately something I've never done before. I break off tiny pieces of my own mana, mixing it with hers. Like when I'm absorbing mana, but in reverse. The mana is dyed in her colors, bit by bit. While I work on that, I push a flood of my own mana into Emily, washing it back and forth over her wounds to get them healing and to keep them from becoming infected. I mentally command Maven to get my stuff.

"Are you alright?" Francis asks, eyeing me and Emily closely.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I finally have the time to respond. Maven carries my basket over, and Francis steps back a little, probably unsure whether to be surprised or afraid. I just grab the nuvrite and iron from the basket and start generating earth mana. I don't care if I'm not completely sure about its healing effects, I'm using it anyway. Splitting my mind so many ways is torture, but I force myself to keep my focus with all of my willpower as I do. I immediately start rushing the earth mana into Emily while I work to heal her wounds.

"What are you doing exactly?" he asks.

It takes me a while to form a response. "Healing her wounds." We also need to go back. It's late and I need to get her bandaged up too. I don't have the time or energy to continue this for the days it'll take to heal her. I have to get her wounds treated normally as soon as I can.

"Maven, get our stuff," I mutter, my head pounding. Actually, I don't know how long I'll even be able to keep this up. Controlling so much mana like this is exhausting. I keep going for a little longer while Maven grabs the stick from the nearby tree, gathers Emily's and my things, and brings them all back.

"Please carry our things, I need to keep working on Emily," I say while picking her up and carrying her on my back. Francis looks both shocked and surprised, but grabs everything Maven has piled up anyway. I don't have any extra attention to use mana to help me walk, so I trudge slowly with the girl larger than myself hanging on my back, her feet dragging against the ground behind me. Francis walks with me for a bit.

"This is going to take too long, I don't know if you'll last," he says. He shifts all our things to one hand, and scoops both of us up in the other. He grimaces at the weight, but pushes on anyway.

"I'm sorry Francis, thank you." I pant out as I keep fighting to control all the mana properly.

"It's no problem. Protecting the citizens is my actual job you know," he tries joking. I manage a grin. "For being 'broken,' you're really strong you know," he comments.

"Not strong enough to protect my friend," I frown. He shrugs sadly.

"Monsters are scary things," he says.

"Yeah, we are..." I mutter. We go a bit further. We were pretty deep in the woods, it's taking some time to get back out at a slow, weighed down pace like this.

"So who is this friend of yours?" Francis asks after a while, still trying to make small talk it seems.

"Emily." I smile a little. "She's so nice, she's too good for me."

"Too good for you?"

"She puts up with all my questions, helps me out with anything, and she even tells me stories and sleeps with me to help with my nightmares."

"Whooo..." Francis whistles appreciatively.

"She knows I'm keeping something secret from her, but she's still my friend anyway." I close my teary eyes. "I've decided to tell her everything."

"Really?!" he gasps.

"I'm going to tell her before I go into combat," I explain. "I can't let anything bad happen to her because of me before then..." I grit my teeth and keep focusing. It feels like a headache is starting to split my head open as I keep this up.

"I see..." Francis nods a few times. He's clearly straining under the weight of everyone, but increases his pace anyway. We break out of the forest after a short time and approach the gate.

"Francis," one of the guards calls, running over.

"Aaronson," he responds to the man.

"You better get those girls in here quick! This was a bad one."

We're brought through a small door inside the gate, into a room with a number of beds.

"That monster had some nasty sort of poison," Aaronson explains. Of the guards that fought, three of them seem to have been grazed slightly. Even so, they're lying in the beds, faces contorted in pain.

"Sorry, sir, we were careless," one of the men says. Aaronson sighs in response.

"We're not sure what to do, if we can't get some holy water from the temple..." Then he shakes his head. "How are the girls?" Of course I look bad because I'm so overstretched, and bleeding quite a lot from that bite and all those punctures, but when he glances at Emily's unconscious body, he looks even more worried. The blood from her shoulders has already completely soaked through most of her shirt.

I grit my teeth. This is all my fault. I drew it to the guards intentionally. None of them would have been injured if not for me. Not to mention, I have a very strong suspicion that I drew the monster to our hunting spot. The logical part of me wants to deny it, but my intuition seems certain. This monster had mana. It must have been able to sense me using mana around there day after day. I must have drawn it there. Of course it isn't logical, but I'm certain of it anyway. This entire incident is my fault.

I meet gazes with Francis. It's my responsibility to heal these men. He furrows his eyebrows a little at the unspoken message. "You sure? There are a lot of people here..." he mutters.

I sigh. "I have to." Then I give a wry grin. "Protecting citizens is my actual job you know." He chuckles, but can't really say anything back. Aaronson raises an eyebrow at our muttered conversation, waiting for some response.

"Hey Aaronson, can you just uhh... step out for a bit?" The other man looks confused, then sort of suspicious.

"Why?" he asks slowly.

Francis takes a deep breath, seemingly flip flopping with his response, then just says. "That's... a secret?" with a worried smile. Aaronson clearly isn't pleased. But then he just sighs, waves his hand, and says 'sure.'

"Was it really ok to go out on a limb like that?" I ask, kind of worried for Francis. Even the injured soldiers are eyeing him weirdly.

"Aaronson's a good guy," he tries waving it off.

"Ok..." I reply skeptically. Then he sets me down. I move Emily to an unoccupied bed, pull out the mana I was working on her with, and then push her mana back into her. After working for so long, I've honestly probably increased the amount quite a bit past what she had before she was attacked. It's fine though, maybe it'll help her heal a little better or something. She wakes up immediately, looking up at me drowsily.

"Aria? What happened? Where did the monster go?" As soon as she says that, she bolts upright, her face contorting in fear, and she begins shaking. Her arms go around herself. I can practically see the attack replaying behind her eyes.

I grab her, hugging her tight. "It's fine! The guards killed it," I assure her. Clinging closely, I rub the back of her head soothingly, but she won't stop shaking. She just had a near-death experience, I realize. It's going to take her a lot to move on. Well, she'll probably never move on completely. I still have nightmares about the ones I've had. But I have to treat the other soldiers here before the poisonous mana does even more damage. I'd really rather not, but I push a sizable portion of earth mana into Emily, and her shaking stops immediately. She suddenly just doesn't seem as scared. "Just hold on for a bit," I say before moving away.

I turn away, pulling off and rewrapping the torn up bandage I was already wearing from my old injuries. That should stop the worst of the blood loss so I won't collapse while I'm working. I walk over to the injured soldiers and they eye me suspiciously. "Just uhh... hold still I guess," I tell them. I reach out briefly, then stop to wipe all the blood off of my hands with my robe before continuing.

I touch the hand of the first one, and pull. It's much harder than with Emily. At first it doesn't even seem to be working. I grit my teeth, take a deep breath, then exhale it all at once when I pull with all of my will. The poisonous mana pours out, followed by the man's own mana. There's a good deal more of it, and much less poison. He was barely grazed after all. Do adults have more mana than children? The man goes limp, falling unconscious immediately. I push his mana off to one area while destroying the small quantity of poison.

The other two men appear alarmed, looking between me and the unconscious man. "Don't worry, I'll try to finish this quickly," I try to assure them. But I can't really tell them what it is I'm doing, and I don't want them to see either, so I'm not sure how well it works...

In any case, I touch the second man's hand, and pull hard one more time. With another great effort, I pull the poison and his mana. I put his aside too while moving to the last man.

"W-what are you doing to us?" he stammers. He pulls his wrist back with a pained look. I'm conflicted. I don't want to scare him, but I can't really describe what I'm going to do...

I just sigh, scratch my head, and grab his knee, where some of his clothing is ripped from the fight, to touch his skin. I pull one more time, staggering from the splitting headache I'm giving myself, and receive the third set of mana. Once I destroy the poison, I work on feeding tiny bits of my mana into theirs to bring it approximately back to full strength. I don't go for too long, working on all three at once feels like I'm beating my head into a rock, and they didn't receive as much damage as Emily, seeing how little poison was in them.

Still, poisonous mana? It's hard to even wrap my head around it. What could make mana like that? I've never seen anything remotely like it. After a short time, I go back to each man, pushing their mana back to them in the same order I took it, making extra sure I put the right mana back in each.

The men snap awake, looking extremely confused. But I'm no longer in any state to do anything. I sit against the end of Emily's bed, holding my head and panting. As soon as I'm finished, Francis calls Aaronson back in. He looks just as confused as the other men, not even knowing what happened or why they aren't dying of poison anymore.

"Sorry, I think I'm spent," I tell Francis, holding my head in my hands.

He nods a bit. "Yeah, you look it. We'll take it from here."

"Wait, uhh," I raise a hand tiredly. "Thanks Francis. Just don't bandage me with lele fruit."

He raises an eyebrow, but says, "Sure." The three injured soldiers watch the conversation, seemingly dumbfounded by everything that's happened. Aaronson just keeps looking back and forth between us.

"Sorry about that, Emily," I apologize, climbing up into bed with her. I hug her again, pulling. She goes limp momentarily while I separate her mana from the earth mana, then wakes up again when I put it back. And then she starts shaking in terror once more. We hug close to each other, and I whisper that it's going to be alright.

I look up vaguely from the bed. I think this is where I give out. The rush that comes with combat is wearing off fast. "Sorry Francis, could I ask a favor? Can you ask for someone at the orphanage? Umm, I guess Eve, or Andy. Can you ask them to handle the hobins we caught?" I'm on the verge of passing out, but I don't want to waste all of Emily's work today. Those two are the most trustworthy ones to come to mind now for some reason.

He chuckles. "Sure. Don't worry about it. Just get some rest." I nod, snuggling close to the trembling Emily, and close my eyes. It isn't long before sleep takes me.