~~

Reece

~~

I heard the message as my Little Bunny addressed the different groups of fighters stationed around the city. I heard the confidence as well as the apprehension in her voice. But I had also watched her methodically figure out how to handle all the beasts, except one.

She had yet to stop the wind beasts that were throwing everyone and everything away from them with tremendous force. These particular monsters would be quite difficult to handle, that's for sure.

I was focusing on the creatures that were most susceptible to fire. I was still in my human form and I was whipping arrows around the battlefield while simultaneously flinging my whip and slashing with my sword. I was hacking away at the things faster than I could think. There were now numerous large burning bonfire like piles scattered around us. There were also a lot of large piles of clay and dirt from the earth type beasts.

The battle was in full swing and it wasn't going to be an easy win. And from what I could hear in the mindlink between us all, the other locations weren't faring so well either. In fact, as I watched a group of warriors shifter and non shifter alike, were flung back when a water beast swept a large misshapen arm toward them. The force of the blow was so hard that it threw the five warriors at least sixty feet before they crashed into a group of trees. Only four of them got up from the fall, the fifth one had been impaled on several of the branches.

I was truly regretting my decision to let my wife join this fight. She had made me promise, made me swear to her that I would not keep her away if she could best me in a fight. What a stupid fucking deal that was. I would have preferred her to be home and safe instead of happily fighting her way to her death. What the hell was the matter with me?

I swiped the legs of a bark beast out from underneath it and made a beeline for a wind monster. I was stronger than them all, and only David was faster than me. I was going to use those abilities to fight that thing that she had not figured out a solution for yet.

But just as I was approaching the thing, a giant stone wall rose up in front of me. It was taller than the wind creature it blocked me from. That wall was quickly followed by another, then another, it kept going until the thing was enclosed in an octagonal stone prison, complete with a roof.

I looked around in confusion. I didn't understand what I was seeing at first, but when I saw the intense look of concentration on Trinity's face, I knew what was going on. She had thought of a way to fight the wind beasts.

Fully encased in the stone prison, the monstrosity couldn't blow back an opponent. But just as I thought things were looking up the beast started to beat at the walls of it's stone prison. One of the walls buckled under the pressure of a massive fist.

Again and again the beast tried to pound its way out, and it very nearly succeeded. But there was no way that my Little Bunny would let that happen.

"Don't you fucking dare." I heard her voice ring out from behind me just as a fresh set of walls sprung up in front of the others, strengthening her hold on the beast.

"That's my girl." I let the comment slip subconsciously as I watched her. I really had to admit that she was an excellent fighter, it just went against my protector instincts to let her fight like this. I wanted to take care of her and protect her so nothing and no one could ever hurt her again.

As I watched, semi lost in my thoughts, I saw what she had planned to do next. Trinity steeled her nerves and summoned more of her magic, I could feel it prickle along my skin and the scent of lemons swirling around her got stronger and more intense.

The next thing I saw was her fling her hands at the stone prison. In an instant, there were dozens of large spikes jutting through the walls. They had gone all the way through, penetrating the walls as well as the beast. Dark, black, brackish like fluid was seeping from within the stone prison and all sounds of movement had ceased.

She had done it, she had figured out how to destroy all types of these monsters. I was so proud of her at that moment. The feelings swelling within me brought a sense of pride and satisfaction.

However, before I even had the chance to express my pride in her, a group of the beasts began to bear down on me. I was quickly surrounded. It was time to pay attention to my surroundings more than her. This wasn't the first time I was nearly attacked while being distracted by her.

Tearing my eyes away from her ethereal beauty, I whipped my right hand, the one holding my flaming sword, around and slashed through the monster closest to me. My left flicked out and the burning whip snared around another creature. Another flick of my wrist and the beast's feet were pulled out from underneath it causing the thing to crash to the ground in a clumsy inelegant heap.

I was still surrounded. The beasts just didn't seem like they would ever stop coming, there was no end to them. But we all had to fight and try our hardest.

'Noah, use earth magic to trap the wind beasts and pierce them through with stone spikes.'

'I was wondering how to kill them, thanks Reece.' I used my mindlink to tell Noah what Trinity had discovered before I went back on the offensive.

As the creatures surged around me, as the war raged around us, I kicked out with my foot to strike one of the creatures on the side of the head. I put all the force I could muster into the blow, and consequently the creature's head was torn clean from its body. More of that disgusting dark colored fluid sprayed from the gaping hole in one of its necks. The spray caught me as I went to land on my feet behind the thing. This fight was proving to be tough as well as disgusting.

Again and again I attacked the creatures. Repeatedly, I killed them. Five dead, then ten, now twenty, soon fifty, and still it looked like there was no end to the things that just kept pouring out of that strange purple fog.

Seriously, how many of these beasts did he manage to make? How many people did he kill this time? This man was not a man, he was a fucking demon. And a coward. He made monsters to fight for him and ran away from a real fight. Just a fucking coward.

We fought. All day it seemed like we were fighting. I couldn't be sure of the time, or how long it had been since I was too busy fighting, but it finally seemed like the crowd of creatures was finally thinning around us. For once, it looked like no more was coming.

Or so I had thought. I was both right and wrong in that thought. The twisted, melded monsters that we had been fighting finally seemed to be exhausted, but there was a new threat crawling over the horizon.

I heard a collective gasp and several terrified screams as these new, even more terrifying monsters approached. I thought the last mutants that Edmond sent were the worst abomination I could ever imagine, but clearly I didn't give Edmond enough credit for his sadistic nature.

These new monsters that were crawling toward us looked like spiders. But they, too, were made from twisted bodies. The things had four heads that had somehow been modified to be larger and were even equipped with large, lethal looking pincers over their mouths.

The bodies of these things looked like one giant, blended torso, and there were four arms and four legs sticking out of the things, all of which the things used to scuttle around like real spiders. I felt my skin crawl and a shudder run through my body as I looked at the newest monstrosities. Edmond was truly a despicable person.

That shudder of mine seemed to be echoed physically and mentally throughout all the gathered soldiers.

'What is that?' I heard an unfamiliar, yet panicked, voice ring through my head.

'Oh Goddess, what the hell are those things?' Another voice joined the shouting.

'Are those people? He made those out of people too?' A female warrior's voice spoke this time, fear, apprehension, anger, all was evident in her voice as well as the others.

'Oh Goddess, it's attacking.' Another, even more frightened voice joined the mix before it was quickly silenced. That was when the screams became louder and the words were spoken out loud.

"Oh my Goddess. He's dead!" I knew that voice, it was Frank from the gate guards.