Having shifted, Hector slowly, menacingly began walking towards Rhea. For Rhea, this was her first time seeing someone who had fully shifted, the output that 0076 had displayed was nothing when compared to this, it was like he had become a beast. Right as Hector was about to grab Rhea’s arm, he was suddenly blinded by a mass of dirt that had been thrown in his eyes. In that moment, David grabbed Rhea’s wrist and began running away from the blinded shifter. Rhea was confused by this, was he helping her? She would need to find time to think about the situation whilst running for her life with her classmate.

Hector cleared his eyes of the dirt, seeing that his prey had bolted away from him, but still within his eyeline. Hector began reaching behind his back, retrieving a horn from his belt. “I didn’t want to get serious with a bunch of cubs, but you both really piss me off!” Hector draws magical runes onto his horn, after taking in a deep breath, he blows the horn loudly in the direction of the escapees. Suddenly an explosion of sound bursts forth from in front of David and Rhea forcing them to stop to cover their ears. They could feel the sound rattling their bones, stinging their organs. Their noses and ears begin to bleed as they look around disorientated. Hector quickly closes the gap, shoving Rhea back as he gets between the two of them. David groggily swings at Hector, missing his mark, stumbling a little in the process. Hector draws a new set of arcane runes onto his horn, once again sounding his magic through it. This time a wave of thunderous force launches David away from Hector, leaving him lying on the ground unconscious. Rhea, whose ears are still ringing, manages to force out the words, “Stop, please!” to Hector before falling to her knees.

Hector looks around on the ground, spotting a large stone. “Alright human, I’m gonna do you a favour, I’m gonna use this rock to break your knees, you can live out your life at home, waited on by maids or something.” Hector walks over to David, lifting the rock above his head. “Though I ain’t sure you can even hear me right now.” Rhea musters up the last of her strength to lunge at Hector, though it is not enough power to push him away, it got his attention. “Just stay down kid, I don’t want to hurt you more than I already have.”

“No… I need to… protect him… from you.” Rhea struggles to keep conscious as she acts as a small blocker between Hector and David. Hector sighs, dropping the rock, and releasing his shifter form. He crouches down to Rhea’s height.

“Listen kid, you’re weak, you’re weak because the humans trained you to be weak.”

“You’re not meant to protect anyone, you’re not even meant to protect yourself, if you’re not here to be target practice, they you are just a pet.” In the distance, Hector can hear a couple to people running towards the scene, he figures he should wrap this up. “Humans see us as dangerous, and so they hunt us, enslave us, turn us into people who are worth less than dirt.” Hector taps his sharp nail against Rhea’s chest, “You are nothing but a pathetic pet who has deluded herself into thinking she is worth something to these humans, but in reality, you disgust them.” Hectors words entered her like a blade to her brain, she felt a sharp stinging headache before she finally fainted. Rhea falls forwards onto Hectors shoulders, he catches her and lifts her by the collar, resting her limp body onto his shoulder. He turns to see two more students had just arrived, panting. A boy with short brown hair named Lucas, and a freckled boy with bright red hair named Sandy. He glared at them for a moment before saying, “Are you gonna let me go or do I gotta do to you, what I did to him.” He points at David, lying on the ground with blood dripping from his ears and nose, his breathing slowly fading. Lucas clenches his fist, looking back and forth between Hector and David, before deciding to look away from this. Hector scowls, disappointed that the kids didn’t try to save their classmate from being taken away, before running off into the woods.

Lucas and Sandy sit on either side of David, assessing his condition. He needed medical help, or at the very least some healing. Lucas looks up at Sandy, who looked red with frustration, tears welling in his eyes at the sight of his friend. “Do you have some mistletoe?” Sandy wasn’t listening, his mind was trying to figure out some alternative to this situation, Lucas snaped in front of his eyes to get his attention. “Mistletoe, do you have it?” Sandy quickly shuffled through his component pouch, retrieving a sprig of mistletoe. Knowing what to do, Sandy began chanting to the spirits of the forest, slowly the sprig grew three small berries, that dropped off into Sandy’s hand. Sandy felt exhausted, this was the first time he had cast the spell, and he didn’t get as much as he desired. He grinned slightly handing the goodberries to Lucas, “Will this be enough?” Lucas begins to force feed the berries to David, “It will be enough to stabilise him, and hopefully wake him up.”

David awoke to the bitter taste of the berries in his mouth, his pain was slowly reducing, the ringing in his ears stopped. He looked around to find that he is flanked by both Lucas and Sandy, much to his relief. He looked around more, but could not find Rhea, or the shifter. “Where is she?” Playing dumb Lucas answered.

“Who?”

“The shifter girl… Rhea, where is she?”

“Oh, she was taken.” Surprised, David shot up.

“Taken? You saw this? And you didn’t try to help her?”

“Why would we? We would just end up like you, it was an accepted loss.”

“Accepted loss? She risked her life to save me!”

“I… Well what was I supposed to do, attack the guy and end up like you?!”

“Yes! No! I don’t know! But something!” Sandy placed his hand on David’s shoulder, trying to relax him. “Look I’m sorry but we couldn’t do anything, when we got here it was already over, and you looked like you were dying, we made a choice.” David knew they wouldn’t have been able to change anything, he just wanted to voice his frustrations. He was angry that he was beaten, that he couldn’t do anything, that he had to be saved by a kid. He felt pathetic. The group sat in silence for a few minutes, David decided to break the silence after having some time to think. “What is a shifter doing here anyway? Why did he attack me?” He thought back on the entire encounter, he was so panicked that he wasn’t paying attention to what the shifter was saying to him, just that Rhea saved him.

“My dad told me a lot about the shifters, and how scary they are. He told me stories about how they would walk into villages late at night, stealing kids from their beds to eat, raping women, and killing the men, it terrified me.”

“I joined this course so that I wouldn’t have to be afraid of them anymore, so that I could protect my family, but when I saw that guy, how big he was, I couldn’t move, I am utterly useless.” David placed his hand on Lucas’ arm.

“I don’t know if I would still be here if you didn’t come, or if Sandy didn’t make those goodberries, you’re not useless.” David turned to look up at the sky, hidden in the trees above. “I just wish you managed to help the kid, she risked her life to help me, and I feel like shit because I couldn’t stop her from getting taken. She isn’t like the shifters in those stories.” Lucas stood up, snapping at David.

“That can’t be true! She’s probably the reason that guy is here!”

“I don’t know, but she treated me like I was worth something, and that means a lot to me. If I get the chance to see her in the future, I want to apologise for how I treated her before today.”

Hector continued to run through the forest, carrying the girl on his shoulder, his mouth frozen in a wide smile. He was running towards the meet up point, ready to present the good news to his team, ready to hear from them how smoothly their end went as well. He wasn’t going to make it to the meet up point. He felt a sharp pain piercing his stomach, forcing him to come to an abrupt stop, forcing him to drop the girl. When he looked down, he saw a long javelin piercing his abdomen, his blood running down the shaft. Hector rips the javelin out, screaming as he does so, and quickly closes the wound with magic.

“That’s as far as you go.” Hector turns to see Tolan “Deadeye” Bailey standing about 15 feet from him, with several makeshift javelins lodged into the ground next to him.

“Deadeye? Your alive? That means that the others are…”

“You don’t need to think about the others, think about yourself, and what I’m gonna do to you.” Bailey grabs a javelin, chanting to the spirits of the forest to mark his target.

“You bloody shithead, coming to my forest, nabbing my student.” Hector readies his horn.

“I’m gonna skewer you for every fucking mistake you made today.”