Captain Beraham watched Lolo’s eyes snap open, glowing green, right as a giant shock wave threw him and nearly all of his men backwards toward the trees. Those dragon soldiers that weren’t killed or severely injured upon impact found themselves contending with a wildly invigorated force of Bear Tribe soldiers shouting the impassioned cry, “to the queen!!”

Lolo dropped her shield again almost as soon as it had fully formed to rejoin the fight. The dragon army was in absolute chaos, and within ten minutes, the bear soldiers had completely annihilated them.

Stopping to catch her breath and collect a few of her throwing knives off some bodies, Lolo turned to Ernkit. “Casualties?”

The soldiers looked around and Ernkit started counting the men. “One hundred ninety-seven. Plus me, Fengli, and.... Where’s my brother?!”

“Find him!” Lolo ordered and looked at Jadu.

“Over here!” someone shouted.

Ernkit ran to find his brother barely conscious and bleeding out from a wound in his gut. “Begrent! Don't do this to me.” Ernkit quickly fell apart and Lolo caught him in a strong hug so Jadu could, literally, work his magic.

“He’s going to be ok, but he lost a lot of blood and will be extremely lightheaded for a while,” Jadu reported once Begrent’s breathing had returned mostly to normal. “He’s going to need some help getting back.”

Everyone except Lolo was staring at Jadu, completely shocked by what had just happened. Ernkit in particular was struggling from the whiplash of knowing his brother was dying to hearing that he was going to be fine. Jadu got up and let the brothers hug each other. Begrent tugged at his armor and shirt to expose the wound site and was shocked not to be able to find one.

“What…? But-but how?” Begrent stammered, pale and dizzy but otherwise fine.

Jadu just smiled as Fengli and Ernkit pulled Begrent slowly to his feet.

“Standig?” Lolo spotted the giant bear emerge from the trees. “What are you doing here?”

“Philige asked me to fetch you. Though I can see that you didn’t really need me,” Standig said, observing the carnage. “We should try to hurry. The main battle is about to start.”

“Standig, Begrent needs some help getting back,” Lolo informed him before giving the command for everyone to return to their original posts quickly.

Standig hefted Begrent onto his back and everyone moved out.

“Oh ho ho!” Ulana winced as Fortus sniped another dragon soldier. “You’ve gotten pretty good with that thing.” A wave of soldiers rushed out of the trees to their left to try and take Fortus and his longbow out, and Ulana pulled a few shurikens out of her belt. “My turn!” She rushed to meet them, throwing her stars one after the other in rapid succession as she went. Several of them found their fleshy targets at the soldiers’ necks, slicing critical structures and dropping the dragons quickly. Ulana drew her sword to contend with the remaining soldiers and dove into the fray with her usual flair.

Fortus continued to casually pick off approaching soldiers while Ulana wiped out the dragon’s assault team.

“Well, that was fun,” Ulana said, cleaning the blood from her sword onto one of her victims’ pants so she could sheath it. “Have you tried connecting with Lolo recently?”

“It’s been a bit,” Fortus admitted. “I should probably do that, but I only have five more arrows to shoot anyway.”

“Finish up,” Ulana rolled her eyes and watched as four out of five arrows hit their marks. “Nice! I’ll cover for you while you check in with Lolo.”

Fortus collected his empty quivers and slung his bow over his shoulder to walk the hundred yards or so back up to the front lines of the Bear Tribe army. General Starkam had picked a large, rocky clearing with a steep slope to position the army above, making the most of their high-ground advantage. Ulana stayed aware of the dragon army marching up the slope behind them so Fortus could confer with Lolo safely.

“Hey, Lolo, how’d your hunting trip go?”

“Nearly perfectly. Jadu saved our only casualty, but Begrent isn’t going to be able to fight for a while. Too much blood loss.”

“Bummer,” Fortus smirked, “you actually had a casualty.”

“Don’t be a jerk, Fortus. You know how much I hate losing people.”

“I know, I’m sorry. But he’s ok now, right?”

“Thanks to Jadu.”

“So what’s your status? You look like you’re passing through some trees?”

“Yeah. We’re south of the lodge already. In fact, see that?”

“Yup. You’re almost there. You might beat us actually.”

“Where are you?” Lolo asked.

“Oh, Ulana covered for me so I could get in some target practice,” Fortus chuckled.

“Making good use of your bow, huh?”

“Something like that. We’re hiking the hill back to the front lines. See you in a bit.”

“Fortus, watch out!” Ulana snagged his arm and jerked him to the side just in time to dodge an arrow. “Let’s pick up the pace. They’re catching us, and we are already in arrow range.” Fortus and Ulana broke into a run and made it to the front lines in time to greet Standig, Lolo and Jadu.

“Great!” Ulana grinned. “We’re all here.”

“Lolo!” Philige pulled her into a hug, relief washing over his face. “How’d it go?”

Lolo gave him a thumbs up.

“Archers at the ready!” General Starkam was shouting, and a few thousand men stepped forward wielding bows. “Prepare!” They each grabbed an arrow. “Aim!” They drew. “Fire!” The volley descended upon the dragons like deadly rain. “Prepare another volley….”

“Heads up!”

The dragons had shot off a return volley, concentrating their fire in the general direction of Philige, General Starkam, and the primordials, and the soldiers around them braced for impact. Lolo’s shield went up more on instinct than by deliberate choice, and thousands of arrows shattered as they made contact with it. Lolo dropped her shield again to conserve energy. The dragon soldiers, even from a distance, seemed shaken while the bear soldiers were astounded but encouraged.

“What was that?!” General Starkam asked in shock.

The corner of Lolo’s mouth twitched, but she didn’t have time to try and answer him. She gave Fortus a little nod, and Fortus started ordering the team around. “Standig, we’re going to want you off to the side, though you can’t really miss with an army this size. Jadu, you and I will clean up behind him. Ulana, you and Lolo get to play here. We’ll wait to go until we see fireworks, and Ulana, try to keep your mind open for me?”

Ulana pouted a little but nodded.

“General Starkam, Bear Tribe Leader, try to keep us updated on your tactics and deployments if you can. We’ll do our best to support you. That means we’re going to need to stay in touch,” Fortus added, looking around at the team.

“You got it. Thanks, Fortus,” Lolo smiled at him.

Fortus nodded, and the boys left to get into position.

“So that’s your team?” the general was starting to catch on.

“Best team there is,” Lolo grinned and stepped forward to walk part-way down the slope with Ulana. “Let’s get this party started, shall we? I hope you brought all that fire you planned to burn the world down with.”

Ulana laughed. “You’d better believe it.”

“Carve a path into the middle for me? I plan to follow you in, so please aim well.”

Ulana nodded, trying to contain her zeal.

The dragon army came to a halt, and another familiar and very unpleasant face stepped out of the crowd to exchange pre-battle pleasantries.

“If it isn’t the little wolf whore,” Sattal goaded her. Lolo had to set a hand on Ulana’s arm to keep her from instantly losing her temper as her eyes were already glowing and her hands were sparking. Meanwhile, Sattal noticed Lolo’s beautiful Bear Tribe sword. “Defected to the Bear Tribe, have you?” he laughed cruelly.

Refusing to take the bait, Huo Lohse simply glared at him. “Pathetic as always, Sattal. I’m embarrassed for you.”

“We’ll see who’s pathetic after today, won’t we?!” Sattal spat.

“And still easily provoked,” Lolo added and laughed coldly. “Mess with the wolf, Sattal, and you mess with the whole pack. My pack has gotten a lot bigger since the last time we met.”

“But not big enough.”

Lolo just smiled and released Ulana’s arm while closing her eyes briefly. Ulana launched into the air on wings of fire and Lolo threw her head back and howled, effectively declaring herself to be the soldier from the Wolf Tribe battle. As the mountain side burst into silver light, Ulana shot off dozens of fiery darts while twisting and spinning through the air, landing behind the dragons’ front lines with an explosive ring of fire that burned all enemy soldiers within a fifteen foot radius. Sattal retreated behind his men, and Lolo and Ulana drew their swords.

Before the Bear Tribe army even had an opportunity to engage, Standig came barreling through the front lines of the dragon soldiers with his shield knocking them to and fro, Fortus and Jadu commencing the work of death in his dark, smokey wake. Lolo used this distraction to follow Ulana deeper into the ranks of the dragon army, and the girls cut a great swath through the dragons until Lolo was satisfied by how deep they had gone.

“Ulana, stick close by me.”

Ulana moved into a back-to-back position with her as Lolo created another massive shield that launched thousands of the tightly packed dragon soldiers in all directions, causing them to crash into other enemy soldiers, most of them dying from the impact alone.

“Who knew that a shield could be so destructive?” Ulana laughed.

“Yeah, but that’s my third shield this morning,” Lolo said. “I can’t do that too many more times.”

“I’d imagine not! Your shields are ginormous!” Ulana smiled and the girls picked their left side on a whim to attack together.

Meanwhile, the Bear Tribe army watched with a morbid fascination as the primordials went to work. Even Philige, who knew at least generally what they were all capable of, found it difficult to focus on anything else. He quickly discovered that his limited conceptual understanding of their ultimates didn’t even approximate the true power and destruction his wife and her team were capable of unleashing. Ulana’s phoenix dive alone was terrible and strangely beautiful to witness. His brother cut through the front lines with each of several passes like a hot knife through butter until the dragons got smart and stopped creating conveniently straight front line formations for him to ram through. Lolo’s defensive shield proved to have equally formidable offensive possibilities, in fact, on her own, in just a couple of seconds, Lolo took out thousands of men, and for a minute, Philige caught a glimpse of her and Ulana at the center of the slaughter, still going strong.

With the dragons’ front line now able to advance using a non-linear formation, it was time for the Bear Tribe army to engage. Philige gave General Starkam the signal.

“Soldiers, to the queen!” General Starkam sounded the call.

Energized by the primordials’ performance, the bear troops charged.

“Lolo, talk to me. What’s your status?”

“I’m a little busy to be holding a chat with you right now, Fortus.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Fortus watched as Lolo spun around with her sword above her head, angled slightly downwards, effectively slicing four men at once at their throats. The blood splatter made Fortus cringe a little. “Gross.”

“Get out of my head if you don’t want to watch.” Lolo turned around to find more opponents.

“Where are you at?”

“We went east about halfway down the slope. Where are you?” Lolo threw one of her knives, hitting a soldier in the thigh.

“Northwest. Standig needed a few minutes to meditate after battering soldiers around for so long. Jadu and I are covering for him, and then I might take a turn. There hasn’t been much to cover him from though.”

“Are you saying that you’re bored?” Lolo chuckled as she used one soldier’s arm to swing herself around and kick his comrade in the head, before wrapping around to sweep the legs of a couple other soldiers.

“Maybe.”

“If it were nighttime, I’d ask you to cover me for the same reason,” Lolo said as she thrust her dagger into someone’s gut.

“If that’s the case, Lolo, you and Ulana should probably stop flying solo and head back up this direction. Don’t exhaust yourself again.”

“I’m far from being truly exhausted, Fortus, I just don’t have a lot of spiritual energy left in the tank for my ultimate. And I’m not alone. Ulana has my back.” Lolo ducked under a slicing attack and lunged, knocking her attacker to ground stunning him. Lolo’s sword slashed across his neck as she stood back up.

“Still, try moving north again. I think the bear soldiers could use the extra inspiration anyway,” Fortus teased. “Did you hear their battle cry?”

“I was too far down the hill to hear it, but I’m getting the feeling that you’re about to tell me.” Her sword found the gap in someone’s armor at the armpit.

“TO THE QUEEN!”

“Ugh. Fortus, stop kidding around.” She whipped around, clobbering someone in the jaw with the hilt of her sword.

“I’m not! That really was their battle cry.”

“Whatever. Ulana and I will work our ways north,” Lolo grunted, kicking someone in the chest while breaking someone else’s nose with her elbow and a sickening crunch.

“So, how’s Lolo?” Jadu asked when Fortus’s eyes stopped glowing.

“She’s having a lot more fun than us right now,” Fortus chuckled.

“Mn.”

“She and Ulana are working their way back up the slope.”

“Probably a good thing. They shouldn’t allow themselves to be isolated somewhere.”

“Especially where Lolo is concerned,” Fortus nodded.

“Because of the Wolf Tribe battle?”

“No, well, that too, I guess. I was thinking more because she’s been so tired lately.”

“She has,” Jadu agreed. “I’m not sure why. It must be a quantity versus quality of sleep problem. She’s getting more sleep, it’s just not good sleep.”

“And her night got cut short this morning,” Fortus fretted.

“Lolo’s tough. She’ll be alright,” Jadu grinned seeing Fortus worry.

“I’m good,” Standig announced, coming out of his meditation. “I’m ready to hammer some more heads together.”

“Great!” Fortus grinned. “But I need a turn to meditate too. I won’t be long.”