Zack spotted his next target and activated the spell. He felt the mana drain from his body as the bolt appeared and sped across the clearing to its target. It was a feeling that was as familiar as it was aggravating. There was no way to track how much energy he had left for spells, outside of his own feelings.

For most people it wasn’t an issue, their spells used far less mana than his did. The sheer amount his magic required made it hard to track if he had enough to fuel more than three shots.

Aisha lumbered over the grass; her blunt paws extended in mindless rage. She jumped onto the back of the snake and began pounding on the scales. The blows were relatively soft but very distracting to the beast, causing it to whip around and trip the other monsters.

Zack took aim at a rapidly approaching bird and fired off his third arcane bolt. It took the last of his natural mana with it. The bird desperately flapped to the side in a bid to avoid the attack. The bolt pierced through its wing and sent the beast plummeting to the ground beside the snake.

George was the next bear to stand and charge towards the momentarily distracted horde of monsters.

“It feels wrong to awaken her as nothing more than a simple puppet,” Zara muttered, stroking Zelda’s worn fur. The bear was special to her and had been with her the longest.

“I know.” Zack spared her an understanding glance as she began the third spell. Her class gave her far more mana than his, but she also had little in the way of offensive spells. Everything she could do really depended on her puppets in one way or another.

Zack clenched his hand tight and prepared for what was about to come next. Once upon a time, he had almost been numb to the soul-searing pain of his ability. He feared those days were long enough past that he would need to deal with the full brunt of what it brought to bear.

There was one plus side of sorts to using his ability. The rate it gathered mana for spells was far faster than normal. The normal cooldown of sorts that existed as a mage gathered mana and cast the spell was nearly non-existent. It was a benefit that even his sister didn’t have with her class.

Of course, the benefit was offset by him needing to withstand the very distracting pain that came with it.

In front of them, George was in the process of ripping a scale free from the snake to use as a weapon. Aisha had moved on from attacking its back to directly above its far more sensitive and less protected head.

That left the rest of the panthers, apes, snakes, and other jungle and forest creatures that somehow all lived together for Zack to deal with. At least he would get plenty of experience out of the deal. Both of them would.

Pointing at the closest monster not occupied by the puppet bears, he fired off a bolt, followed by another, and then another. His foot felt as though it was on fire, his toes dipped in acid, while the skin on the underside was being flayed. His left butt cheek was next, as he continued to use his magic as fast as he could. The cheek went ice cold, and each nerve ending began to ache and then scream as they were torn open.

Zack stumbled and fell to his knees, Zara catching him at the last moment. She had finished turning Zelda into a puppet, and her part in the fight was over for the moment. Until one of them got injured and needed her help again.

The twentieth arcane bolt shot out as she helped to support his weight. The number of beasts dwindled rapidly as the bolts would randomly send pieces of them flying away. It wasn’t always a one-hit kill, but it was almost always enough damage to take them out of the fight for the moment. The bears would come in and finish them off after that. Each of the gore-covered fluff machines had equipped themselves with pieces of their fallen foes to use as weapons.

Zara wasn’t only supporting him; her magic was also supporting the bears. Invisible strings of mana connected them to her, and then to the pieces that were torn from them. Fluffy ears, paws, and more were all ripped off and reattached by magic as the stronger monsters retaliated. The pieces moved across the ground and swam through the air to stitch themselves back on.

A ring of death and bodies missing pieces surrounded them. The chunks had either disappeared with Zack’s spells or been taken by the bears for their own use. Regardless, within minutes, the horde had been thinned considerably, and the rest had started to flee.

Zara was leaning heavily against Zack, her skin clammy and beaded with a cold sweat. The amount of mana she had been forced to pour out to keep three bears functioning had pushed her to her limits. She had actually been forced to stop healing them as her pool of mana ran dry for the moment.

Zack was in even worse condition. Physically, he was fine. The damage his ability caused affected the soul or astral version of his body. The pain, however, was real, as the two were intrinsically linked at a core level. In some ways, that made it worse. It forced his body and brain to both send differing signals that created a confusing and chaotic anguish.

Zack sucked in a deep breath and groaned. His eyes burned from an excess of built-up salt, and the once green grass had turned into a sticky red quagmire. The mess had solidified around the edges into a pasty glue that was holding his old pants to the ground.

Zelda walked through the mixture, her fake fur paws slurping with every step. Behind her, George was in the midst of retrieving an arm that had been torn from his body, along with all the missing fluffing. Aisha was lying on top of a spiny lizard, who had its claws stuck all the way through her chest. She was no longer moving and was missing her legs along with a paw.

He hoped the puppet spell was still working on her. If it had failed completely, then he would need to sew her limbs back on later. Which would mean that carrying her would be even more awkward on the way back than it had the first time.

He had been hoping to use the room in his pack for mana crystals, not carting around nasty, gore encrusted pieces of a teddy bear.

Zelda stopped in front of them and gently picked Zara up first and carried her away from the mess to rest on the grass. Then she came back, and in the same gentle manner, pried him free and then carried him over to Zara’s side.

“Thanks,” He whimpered, as despite the bear’s gentle efforts, it had still hurt to be moved.

Zara nodded and sent Zelda off to begin the grisly work of dissecting the beasts. It didn’t happen often this near the portal, but occasionally one would have a mana crystal inside them.

“How many levels did you get out of that?” She asked, while reaching into his bag and retrieving some water.

“I haven’t checked yet. You?” He accepted the second bottle of water from her and drank it down greedily.

She laughed and started to cry; her tears a complex mixture of emotions. “There were nearly thirty monsters that attacked us, and I only got to level three!”

“Don’t forget that we were sharing the experience.” He stared up at the dark sky, and let the empty metal bottle fall to his side. “How close are you to level four?” He was desperately trying to keep from moving and aggravating the damage that had started to bleed through from his astral form.

“Not very close,” She pouted and drained the last of the water from her bottle. “I still need over two hundred more experience.” Zara rolled over and looked at him. “Do you think Second will have me do the compatibility test?”

“Probably, why? Interested in finally learning what your actual score is?” Zack was grateful for the small distraction the conversation was providing.

She nodded. “It would be nice to know how much of the experience from the fight just now I lost out on.” Her brow furrowed in thought. “Then again, knowing that I’m missing out on experience due to having a bad compatibility will bug me endlessly. The same could be said for me not knowing though as well!” She rolled over and kicked the ground in frustration.

Zack rolled his eyes, secretly relieved that she was handling everything so well. He wasn’t sure how he had expected her to react to being in the portal again… No, that wasn’t true, he did know. He had expected her to awaken, and then use her ability to animate Zelda right away. Or, to lose it completely, this had been a nice, happy medium.

Instead, they had been attacked, and that particular reunion had been forced to be delayed.

George walked towards them, his loose fluff and missing arm clutched in the armpit of his good arm. He dropped it all by Zara’s side and went to help Zelda in dismantling the monsters.

“Is Aisha still a puppet?”

“Just barely,” Zara struggled into a sitting position and looked at the sorry state of her newest bear. “It’ll be a bit before I have enough mana to fix her up, and even longer before I can do anything more complicated with her.” In other words, properly animating all three of her bears would take some time.