--------///----Eclina's POV----\--------

Espiral had been following tracks for a bit and eventually found the sources. There were four Venom Panthers in a small clearing devoid of trees just eating a type of buffalo that i hadn't seen before but was apparently called "Root Vangler Buffalo" which made me pause. I had information on the buffalo but not Espiral. I knew he evolved but i didn't really take in what that meant. He was something completly new. But Mr.Garris didn't say anything so he probably had a reason for it. Espiral had stalked the Panthers for a while so even though they were right infront of him, he didn't do anything reckless and started to quietly charge up attacks to use against them.

First he made darkness needles. Then he made lightning arrows. And then to top it off, he made some of his feathers fall out and coated them in fire. I didn't get how he could use them all at the same time but it was nice to see that he definetly got stronger then before. The Panthers didn't seem to know where he was since he was staying high up in the air away from their line of sight, but they seemed to know that something was wrong. Their fur started to stand on end and they all backed away from the mostly eaten buffalo as they started to look around.

They kept looking left and right but as soon as they looked up, it was too late. Espiral had sent down the needles first as they were the smallest and fastest, then the feathers while the arrows kept rotating around him seemingly as a back up if any missed. His darkness needles had been spread out and aimed at all of the panthers while his feathers were aimed at the biggest and smallest panthers. The panthers avoided some of his needles but the smallest panther was hit in its hind leg, which slowed it down and let some of his feathers strike its body.

Its fur caught fire and started to burn. The panther tried to roll around or use water to put the flames out but a quick lightning arrow to the mouth stopped it, and with the water it used going against it caused it to just seize on the ground. It kept burning and since it couldn't put the flames out, it kept burning. Other then that one, the others did well to not get hit by the needs even though some were grazed by them. There was some corrosion going on but the other panthers did fine. His feathers didn't manage to hit the biggest panther the first time but he seemed to be controlling them with his fire and made them follow after it.

The biggest panther, which was probably the leader, coated its claws in poison and slashed at his feather but the feathers moved out of the way and kept going. The other panthers that weren't being focused by Espiral's feathers were being focused by Espiral himself. He had swooped down with his talons out and coated in fire and lightning. The first one he went for was still being pressured by his feathers so it couldn't help the others out so even though it was a two versus one, Espiral wasn't struggling.

If he was getting snuck up on from the side, he would send out a lightning arrow and attack the panther to keep it from attacking the panther that he was focusing on. And if he had to back away, he would just fly higher and start charging new arrows, needles or feathers. No mater the form of attck, element or physical, Espiral avoided. A weird thing i noticed was that whenever he used his feathers, new ones would just grow back in to replace the used ones. The panthers were getting annoyed so they tried to back off and retreat towards the forest parts of the mountain.

Espiral saw that and didn't actually stop them. He chased them and tried to group them into one spot but then the leader made it to the forest trees and started to climb up to the branches. Then when Espiral got close, the leader jumped from the branche and went towards Espiral. The leader had coated his claws in poison while earth coated its forelegs and face. Though before it got close, Espiral coated himself in fire and met the leader. Espiral extended his talons and went above the leader as he cut into it. From where i was, the wound looked pretty bad, which was good.

Espiral's talons seemed to be even better then before and with them being coated in fire, the wounds burned but they didn't bleed much. The leader crashed to the ground and didn't get up for a bit but Espiral went after it before it did. He shot out some darkness needles towards its legs to keep it there and he hit it. The leader was trapped and with Espiral's lightning arrows coming after it, it was done for. The other panthers had seemed to be trying to find a moment to help their leader as they were just on the side just charging up poison and elemental attacks, but after it died, they froze and then just started to run away.

Espiral saw that and took off his fire coating and switched to lightning. He started to fly up in a similar way then before, and when he reached high enough, he started to dive down and spin. The other panthers were focused on escaping so they didn't see, which made it easier for Espiral to weave through the few trees in the area and start spinning towards them. The speed he was doing it with was way faster then the other time, and he reached the first panther and tore through it. After that one went down, he started going towards the other one and made it to it in no time as he sent out lightning arrows and feathers to finish it.

After i was sure he was done, i came out and went over to him. He was just hovering in the air and looking at the four Venom Panthers that he took out and just seemed to be in a daze. Though when he noticed that i was coming over, he took off his lightning coating and came down to me.

(Espiral) " I did it... Did you see Big Sis, i did it! "

He had a smile on his face and he just seemed to be happy. I knew that he was worrie about being weak, he even said it before. So having just gone through this and taking down four Venom Panthers on his own, that must've been shocking. Now that he knew that he wasn't weak anymore, he was happy. I couldn't help but just smile back and give him a hug.

(Eclina) " You did great. Should we eat some of them? Or leave them for other beasts? "

(Espiral) " Eat! Let's eat! But which ones do we eat from? "

(Eclina) " There's a burned one, maybe we can go over and see if that ones tasty. "

(Espiral) " Ok! "

We walked over to the cooked ish panther and took a look at how it was. The fur on the outside was essentially all burnt and just the hide was left. The hide was a good shade of brown so i decided to just use one of my claws and cut into its hide to see how the meat would look. When my claw slid down, i could see the meat looked relativelly nice so i decided to just cut out a part of it and gave it to Espiral to see if he'd like it. He took the chunk from my claw and ate it, and started to nod his head as he finished swallowing it.

I cut out another portion of its body for myself and took a bite. The taste was pretty good and the juices helped bring out some flavor. It was nice so we kept eating from this panther until the majority of its midsection was nothing but bone and the occasional gut that we didn't want. After that, we moved over to the leader and took meat from it. After that, we didn't have anything to do, so we brought all the bodies together and put them all in one spot for any beasts that wanted them.

I didn't want to devour them since they weren't my kills, even if it would help me with the poison element. After that, we started to make our way back to the big tree but on our way there, Espiral would look over to me and then just get lost in thought.

(Eclina) " Are you ok? "

(Espiral) " Yep... It's just... If i get a little bigger, wouldn't i be able to have Big Sis ride on my back? "

When he said that i almost slipped off my air platform. I started to look at him, and when he noticed that he stopped flying and just started to hover so it would be easier for me to do that. I circled around him and tried to picture how it would go, but as he was now, if i got on his back then i would still mess up his flying even if it was by a little bit.

(Eclina) " We can wait till you get bigger. Then we can try it out. "

(Espiral) " Aww, ok Big Sis. "

He looked disappointed but it was nice to see him look disappointed at something that wasn't really important. We kept on heading back to the big tree and back to Mr.Garris. He was waiting for us and seemed to know that the hunt webt well.

(Garris) " You're abilities are interesting. However using three elements at the same time is something that takes years to do. For you to be able to do it as you are now, is something that wasn't expected. Though you didn't use your air or metal. Why? "

(Espiral) " Umm... I didn't feel like i needed too. "

(Garris) " Hmm? Even if you felt that way, it was an opprotunity to get field experience with them. Right now, your proficiency with those three elements is good. You need to work on air and metal so you do not get too dependent on them. "

(Espiral) " Yes sir... "

(Garris) " Good. Other then that, let's head out for these rifts for today and go from there. "

And that's what we did. We checked all over the forest and got any rifts that we found. There were two rifts that wouldn't close so Mr.Garris cordoned off the one that was closest to open and let me handle it. Espiral wanted to join but Mr.Garris didn't want to let that happen. I saw what was going on and just made a decision.

(Eclina) " Let's just let Espiral try it. If it's too much i can just jump in and help him. I won't let anything happen to him while i'm here. "

(Garris) " Hmm... That works. However if it's anything too much then i'll handle it myself. "

I nodded at that and we let Espiral handle whatever came out. Though when it did open, it was underwhelming. A lizard that had eight legs and stood at six feet tall had come out but it didn't really feel threathening. It had green scales and brown eyes while its claws had the normal white look that a majority of beasts had. The thing had a forked tongue and seemed to mostly rely on that since i couldn't see any nostrils. Other then that, it was pretty simple.Espiral took to the sky and started to gather metal into a single long spike. Even though it took a while, the lizard couldn't really do anything as it had no way to hit Espiral from where it was.

After Espiral had finished, he had a five foot long spike that couldn't be called a spike anymore and looked more like a Javelin. He launched it at the lizard and implaed it right through the eye. The lizard collapsed and just twitched for a little bit before it just stopped. Espiral swooped down to it and poked it with his tallons to see if it was actually dead. After he found out that it was, he landed on it and waited for us to come over. Which we did.

(Garris) " A standard creature it seems. It seems that we had no reason to worry. However The next one may not be so easy so keep that in mind. "

(Espiral) " Yes sir. "

(Eclina) " So do we go over to it now? "

(Garris) " We might aswell. Just keep in mind that you shouldn't always expect an easy enemy. The bug creature from before is a good example to keep in mind. "

Espiral's face cringed at that and he just nodded his head. After that, we left the lizard where it died so any beasts that wanted it could get it. We started to head over to the next rift and just waited for it to open. Espiral was still going to take it on his but if anything did happen then we would be nearby to help him. It took a while, but the rift started to open and the thing in it started to come out.

The thing looked like a kangaroo but like someone had stopped eating halfway. Part of its arms, face, stomach and legs seemed to have been eaten off. It had human hands and potruding bones coming out of its elbows that looked more like weapons then bones. The thing didn't even hop either, it just walked out. Which was disappointing because kangaroos were supposed to hop. Oh well.

Espiral was up in the air so even though the thing looked a little grotesque, it couldn't do anything to him. Espiral started to charge up some wind blades to cut it down, though the kangaroo saw it and then did something crazy. It started to tense its legs and crouched a bit and then jumped! Espiral was atleast thirty feet high in the air, but it jumped up to him and smacked him with its tail. He wasn't expecting it, and i wasn't either so i'd probably get hit by that too.

Espiral was sent a bit away but he regained his composure and looked at the kangaroo differently. The thing started to fall down but right before it hit the ground, it slammed its tail down first then landed with its legs. From where i was, i couldn't figure out how that worked but i decided to try that the next time i could. Though for now, Espiral was focused on making copper defenses and charging them with lightning. For now he managed four copper javelins but it looked like he couldn't do more then them. The kangaroo looked at them with its white lifeless eyes and just started to get ready to jump again.

Espiral sent out two of his javelins but the kangaroo jumped again, though that's what Espiral was waiting for since he used the other two for defense. When the kangaroo got close to him, he sent the first one to impale its leg while he used the other javelin to deflect its tail. They worked but the kangaroo didn't seem to feel anything as after the thing landed, it just took the javelin out with its hands and tossed it aside. Though it didn't seem to notice that the first javelins that Espiral had shot out were still moving!

The first two hadn't been moving much so the kangaroo didn't notice that Espiral was still controlling them. He used the first one to impale the kangaroo's other leg while the second went for the leg that he impaled earlier. Then when it was stuck in place, Espiral sent out the last javelin that was still with him and shot it out towards the kangaroo's head. It saw that and tried to catch the javelin, which it did. But when it caught it, Espiral flared all the lightning in the javelins impaling the kangaroo and shocked the javelin out of its hands. The kangaroo started to squirm and couldn't fight back, which gave Espiral enough time to move the javelin that the kangaroo threw out of its wound and the javelin that it stopped, and send them through its head.

As soon as he did, the kangaroo fell to the ground and just stayed like that. Espiral flew down and checked the body again just to make sure it really was dead. When he did, he landed on its head and waited for us to come over. Me and Mr.Garris walked over to him and started to listen to Mr.Garris.

(Garris) " You did well. Keep working on your metal and work on being able to use other metals outside of copper. However you only used air once and then never again throughout that fight despite there being moments that air would've helped you. Just remember you have a wide variety of options available for you to use. "

(Espiral) " Yes sir... Now what do we do? "

(Garris) " Now, we continue doing what we have been doing for months. We eat, sleep, train, secure the forest and repeat. Until the Arbor is capable of dealing with the rifts itself we will keep this schedule. "

(Eclina & Espiral) " Ok. "

And that's what we did. Life in the forest was still going despite the rifts that would keep popping up. Our lives kept going on and we kept getting stronger. There weren't many changes going on and things were actually getting quiet. Though that would all change five years later.