The darkness of this strange place was beginning to eat at Fayde, it was an unsettling feeling. Thankfully, his power had returned enough that he could at least use a bit of his Void energy to allow him to see clearer in the darkness as well as to help alleviate some of the pressure he was feeling from the plane. The dragon had promised him that he would give him all his power when the time was right, and only at that moment would he deal a fatal blow to the enemy.

“Mystra’s general eh…. Ridiculous.”

“Did you say something Fayde?” asked Felicia who was practically glued to his side.

Fayde shook his head, “Nothing, we need to keep moving. We are almost there.”

Fayde glanced to his left and right, there were over a dozen shapeshifters accompanying him and they were in their animal forms. Occasionally they would growl in his direction and Fayde could feel their looks of anger. Although the dragon had informed them of things and instructed them to follow Fayde, they still couldn’t get past their bias towards him. At least not at the current moment, but Fayde just shrugged it off.

The way they looked at Felicia was strange though. It must have been curiosity, or perhaps it was something else. She was sort of like them, but also not. Perhaps they were intrigued by what their descendants had become. Although they grumbled about having to follow a Human, they didn’t shirk their duty. They followed Fayde’s orders without question whether they liked him or not.

“Fayde, have your powers returned yet?” Felicia whispered at his side.

“Not fully, about halfway.”

“Can we really do this?” She asked with concern.

“Don’t worry, the dragon promised to give me his control over the fragment. At that time there will be nothing suppressing me and I will also gain a temporary boost from his remaining strength. I can’t imagine it won’t be enough.”

Felicia could see Fayde’s confident expression, but she was still worried. If anything happened to Fayde she wouldn’t know how to answer to Reia and the others.

“Okay, I trust you.” Felicia said softly while gently touching Fayde’s arm.

Fayde looked at Felicia, surprised by the sincerity and concern in her voice. Although she was somewhat annoying and she was certainly a rather simple person, she was also cute in her own way.

“I’m getting sick watching these two, especially since he’s a Human. Ugh.” Laz jumped out of the shadows and pretended to puke.

Branz scoffed while covering his eyes with a large bear paw, “Indeed.”

It was quite a strange sight seeing a sleek black jaguar pretending to puke while an enormous bear covered his eyes. Fayde had never seen anything like it. It was almost comical, but Fayde ignored the comedic pair and shrugged it off.

“What are you two oafs talking about?” Felicia was clueless as usual.

The two shapeshifters just shook their heads.

“Enough fooling around. We are soldiers, not a circus act!” growled Kerron who was the commander of this shapeshifter force.

“How much longer Kerron?”

“Human.. We are close. I received a mental message from the General already. Normally he is loathe to use his power… but it seems that it no longer matters if we accomplish this mission. I don’t understand what the General is thinking, but he has placed his hopes on your shoulders Human. I will say it plainly, I don’t trust you.. But I trust the General. We will follow his will, even it if it means working with a Human. I hope you are prepared to fulfill your promise to us.”

“Don’t talk to Fayde like that! So what if he is a Human? Fayde is not like that! I don’t understand much, and maybe I don’t know the whole story, but you have no right to talk to him like that. We didn’t ask to come here and we haven’t done anything wrong! We agreed to help you all, how about showing us a little respect? Huh!? Fayde is my future husband, you better be nice to him!”

Before Fayde could even respond, Felicia scowled and berated the Jaguar.

“Uh… Felicia.. Nevermind.” Fayde just shook his head helplessly.

‘It hasn’t even been decided whether you will be my wife or not…’

The shapeshifters were somewhat taken aback by her reaction. They didn’t expect that she would take his side with such enthusiasm. She was not much different from them, but her feelings towards this Human seemed to be genuine and not something forced. They had hated Humans for so long that it was hard for them to change the way they treated them.

Kerron collected himself quickly, “I meant no disrespect. It is difficult for us to accept this situation. Perhaps I was a little rude.”

“Hmph.” Felicia showed her displeasure, but it ended up looking cute.

Fayde looked away and could only hide his laughter at her reaction. He didn’t want to laugh at her, but he found her reaction quite funny.

“Let’s just get this over with. What did the General say?” asked Fayde.

“The battle between Mystra and Kalina has already begun and will be decided soon. Although we are loathe to aid Mystra, in order to fool her we must go through with the agreement. Kalina will lose this battle, but Mystra won’t gain anything from it!”

“Good.” Fayde nodded, “I can’t wait to leave this endless darkness behind me. Everyone must be worried too.”

“There are over a hundred thousand shapeshifters on this fragment. That is all that is left of us, but only a couple thousand of them could be awakened. Our General doesn’t have the strength to awaken all of us. It would be too much of a strain on him. Soon, we will be able to see all our brothers and sisters again, but I don’t know what they will make of this situation.”

Fayde could hear the pain and sorrow in Kerron’s voice. There wasn’t anything he could do about the past, but he looked at the majestic Jaguar with a deep respect. How could he not understand what these shapeshifters had been through.

“Kerron, I know you don’t trust me, and I don’t blame you. What was done in the past, well I won’t comment. In truth, I may or may not even really be Human at all. All I know is, I have every intention of doing what’s right by all of you. I hope you can at least pacify the others and give me a chance to prove to all of you that I won’t be like those Humans who hurt you.”

Kerron returned Fayde’s gaze. He looked at Felicia beside him who was nodding her head vigorously and he gave an animalistic grin, “I can already see how different you are. The others might take a bit of convincing, but don’t worry. The orders of the General are absolute. No one will disobey them no matter how much they are unhappy about it. In time, you can prove to them your worth.”

Fayde nodded in agreement.

“We are close now, the enemy camp is not far from here.”

A lithe Jaguar jumped out from the dense jungle flora ahead. This Jaguar had been sent ahead to scout and would be able to easily avoid notice. The Jaguar shapeshifters were the penultimate scouts and assassins because of their stealth abilities. They weren’t the strongest of shapeshifters, but their bloodlines were suited for stealth and this made them powerful foes.

“It’s about time. I’ve been itching for a fight.” grumbled Branz.

“Tch, you bears, you all love to fight. It’s about all you can do. Otherwise you spend all your time sleeping!”

The Jaguars all laughed at the large and rotund bear.

“Blah! Much better than you Jaguars who just slink around all the time.”

“Enough! Let’s prepare ourselves for the fight ahead. Once the General gives the order we will strike! The battle between Mystra and Kalina must be nearing its end by now. Kalina definitely won’t expect an army of shapeshifters to strike the rear of her army.”

Elsewhere, at around that time. A battle was fiercely raging between Mystra’s Elven army and Kalina’s Dark Elves. Both being Elves, they were similar in a lot of ways, but they also had some differences. In truth, the Dark Elves were much more suited to fighting in this type of environment and originally Kalina had felt very confident in victory. Both species of Elves were well suited to fighting in a Jungle environment, but the darkness suited Dark Elves more.

The archers of the two species of Elves were pretty much equal in their ability and strength and their magical abilities were not much different from each other as well. Although the fragment wasn’t large, it still consisted of hundreds of miles of jungle and the battlefield between the two goddesses’ armies stretched for many miles of this jungle fragment. Battles between divinities were on an immense scale and involved many hundreds of thousands of their soldiers. This battle was especially fierce since both sides had strong hatred towards one another.

The devastation had already destroyed a quarter of the fragment, leaving the areas of the jungle where they fought in complete ruination. Their spells were especially destructive and even the battles between the foot soldiers and archers had left wide swathes of destruction. The powers at play were incredible and both sides only wanted to completely annihilate their enemy. They didn’t care what the cost was, as long as they won. To die in the service of their goddess was the ultimate honor ingrained within their very souls.

Although the goddesses weren’t allowed to personally fight in the battle, they still had their presence on the battlefield. They were commanding their forces much like one would play chess, from a separate space. They could see everything that was happening on the battlefield, but they were not there in person. Instead, they were each in a dimensional space that resembled a very luxuriously furnished room.

The two goddesses were seated across from each other, but their attention seemed to be elsewhere. Both goddesses gritted their teeth and each were visibly struggling as they controlled the battlefield. Although it would appear strange to anyone seeing the scene, their minds were in fact not in that place and were very focused on the battle taking place. They didn’t even have a moment to spare for the refreshments which had been placed in front of them. This was a normal scene and neither of them could afford to place even a small amount of attention elsewhere. Not when the battle was raging so ferociously and the winner had not yet been determined.

The death toll had easily reached half a million by the time Kalina seemed to finally gain the upper hand of the battle. Her Dark Elves were finally pushing the Elven forces back at the cost of many lives. However, it was at that time that a change suddenly came over the battlefield. Kalina hadn’t fully taken notice of it yet, but strangely the casualties began to spike. What was strange about it was because they were coming from the rear of her forces. She didn’t notice it initially, but it eventually became noticeable.

‘What’s going on?’ There was a weird fog over what was happening and she attempted to exert some of her power to see what was happening but she was obstructed.

This battle was almost like an RTS game to the two goddesses. Although it appeared like a game to them, to the Elves who were really fighting and dying it was anything but. Of course to them, this was the greatest of honors and they had no complaints. These were their goddesses and creators and this was their holy purpose. To fight and die for the honor of their goddess, what greater honor could there be?

Kalina began to feel a bit anxious as the death toll mounted on her forces. A strange feeling began to nag at her. She had originally felt that Mystra was too confident and she couldn’t understand why. There was something very wrong with the entire atmosphere surrounding the competition this time and it had been bothering Kalina, but she couldn’t act on suspicion alone. The others would only laugh at her.

Something was definitely restricting her on the battlefield. She was a goddess and only another one of the divinities could possibly interfere with her, but there were strict rules in place. How could another one of the divinities sabotage the competition?

‘Dammit! I have to do something or else the battle will turn against me!’

It was at that moment that she sensed something she had never thought she would ever sense again. It was only for a moment, but it didn’t escape her notice.

“It can’t be…”