"How the hell did I wind up in this situation?" Luna muttered to herself as she approached the tree line from within the thick forest. With nothing to guide her but the calming sound of running water, Luna continued moving forward unsure of where she was.

Outside the wooden clutches, Luna found herself standing on a field of smooth rocks, all a tad bit larger than her fist. They crunched and rubbed off one another as she walked across them and in the centre of the stony field was a wide creek of crystal clear blue water. The forest took possession of the land twenty meters on the other side of the stream but both sides of the creek seemed more or less symmetrical. The sun glistened off many of the different rocks that Luna could have mistaken quite easily for gemstones. The reflections of light made it difficult to keep one's eyes open yet the beauty of the location was undeniable. The field stretched beyond the eye's view both to Luna's left and her right and she couldn't help but subconsciously compare it to the milky way.

Luna's fixation was broken when she heard the sound of rocks rolling and a weak splash behind her. She quickly whipped around to see a little girl with snow-white hair covering her face and wearing tattered rags standing with one red foot in the water. Luna slowly approached her cautiously and quietly. Once closer she noticed that it wasn't only her foot that was red, but her hands and other foot too. "Did you get burned?" Luna finally asked her, well out of arms reach.

The child jumped, removing her foot from the water and planting it firmly on the most stable patch of rocks she could immediately find. When she faced Luna, Luna noticed that her face matched the tone of her hands and feet, even her eyes were blood red though not bloodshot. "We have the same eyes." Luna whispered to herself, unsure herself as to why. She continued inspecting the child without moving closer, noticing the rags were bloodstained, her fingernails were black as midnight and appeared to be sharpened into claws. "Are those... horns?" Luna asked her noting two large, bone-like objects with sharp points protruding from under the child's hair and starting to wrap around her forehead.

"Away!" she barked and her irises seemed to almost rotate about her pupils. Luna tried to move closer fearing that the child was hurt but her right leg refused to obey her commands. She looked down at it, thinking that perhaps she snagged it in an overgrown root as it felt like something was holding it yet she could see nothing. Luna looked back up at the child who was backing away and thought to herself, Is she doing this?

"There she is!" another voice yelled from within the forest and five filthy men emerged, all bearing crudely made axes and bows as well as planks of wood as shields. "The red-skinned devil! The imp won't get away from us this time." The forward-most man continued to yell. Luna looked to them then back at the child where she noticed that her skin didn't appear to have any burn tissue. Her skin was just simply red, like Luna's own skin was white. It was nothing more than natural colour.

The child then turned her focus away from Luna and Luna stumbled forward when she did. She looked at her leg again which she could once more move freely. The child then began yelling in a language Luna had never heard before but she guessed they were supposed to be cries of fear though they fell on deaf ears as the men drowned them out with their own clamour. "She can't control a large area at once or can't stop all of us if we move together. Kill this little cretin before it finds the village!" They hollered and advanced towards her in a line, their planks up in front of their torsos.

The child's irises began to rotate again and a small number of rocks began to float around her. They were launched at a furious speed towards the hunters however not fast enough to break through their measly shields. They continued their approach and the child continued pelting them and without breaking her focus on them, she knelt down and placed one hand on the ground. A rock at one man's foot began to wobble. Luna watched it suspiciously, realizing that it was the child's doing. After only a moment, the rock shot upwards, hitting the man on the underside of the nose, causing him to reel backward in pain. He held one hand up to the wound and stared down the child with a fire in his eyes. Blood now stained his hand and continued to run down into his mouth. The child however merely lifted her hand towards him and his eyes turned wide. "Get away, quickly!" One of his friends shouted but a moment too late. The blood on his hand and coming from his nose, his blood, began to glow a bright pink and moved on its own. It rushed out of his nose, forcing him to fall to the ground, screaming in pain and the blood pooled together in a floating mass before the child's hand. She then closed her fist on it and the blood changed shape to and solidified as a sword. The man fell silent, his skin completely pale and wrinkling rapidly, his hair growing long and turning white in the blink of an eye. He looked up at the sky, motionless and his body grew cold.

The forward-most man grunted then yelled, "No matter how small the injury, do not try to tough it out! If she can see your blood without any obstructions, she can manipulate it however she pleases."

"That would've been good to know before we started hunting her!" One of them yelled back, his tone shaky. "We're not even close enough to the village to get back up. They don't even know we're here!"

"Just don't get hit!" the leader yelled back, his tone also growing more nervous. He pointed at another and began giving him instructions. "Get behind me. I'll protect you from the rocks to the front. She can't manipulate anything so far away from her whenever she pleases, she doesn't have the mana for it." He then turned his attention towards her. "That's why you made a sword, isn't it? You can't attack us from behind our shields now, can you?" His attention changed back to the other man. "Hit her with an arrow as I cover you. She doesn't have the strength left to catch it out of the air."

Despite the fact that the child didn't seem to speak in the same language, she appeared to realize what their intentions were and what they figured out. She then put both hands on the handle of the bloody sword as though she was going to try and slice the arrows out of the sky instead. Luna gritted her teeth then ran in front of the red-skinned child. "She's only acting in self-defense!" Luna shouted at the men.

"Freaks always stick together don't they?" One of them said in reply and Luna reached for her hood. She gasped when she realized it wasn't up. She then inspected her attire and realized that she wasn't wearing her usual clothes at all. In place of her sweater and jeans, she was wearing an old fashioned wool dress. Her tail wasn't even wrapped around her waist. My ears and tail have been exposed all this time? She thought to herself. Why didn't they react sooner?

"Kill the red skin but if possible let's take the 'demi' alive. Albino wolves are really popular on the market." He spoke brashly.

Luna's ears shot up and she looked the hunter in the eyes, pushing her thoughts aside. "Trying to scare me away won't work." She said confidently, though within her head she still wondered what her next step would be. "You don't think you can take both of us at once, do you?" She continued her act. Why the hell am I protecting this child? She thought to herself. As though she'd have done the same for me!

A bead of sweat formed on the hunter's forehead and the man behind him started to ready an arrow. "As I said, don't kill the demi." He growled, trying to hide his own fear. All of them then took a quick step backward and out of the corner of Luna's eyes she saw a flash of red. She looked up to see the sword of blood spinning in the air and the child threw a hand towards the leader. The sword's tip pointed straight at him and shot forward like a bullet out of a rifle. He attempted to block it but the sword punched right through the shield and into his stomach. He fell over grasping his stomach as the others tried to determine their next move in confusion, whether to try and assist him or leave him to finish their attack. They all hurriedly exchanged glances, each one hoping another would take command and tell them what they should be doing.

In that moment of confusion, the red-skinned child grabbed Luna's hand and pulled her across the creek where they sprinted for the tree line together. Luna noticed that the child was now drenched in sweat and assumed that whatever allowed her to propel her sword like that must've exhausted her. They ran together until they hit the tree line and a couple of arrows stuck into the trunks around them. They quickly got behind cover but the child fell on her butt as soon she got there, panting so hard Luna thought she could pass out at any second.

What now? I've never fought more than one person before, especially not armed opponents! There's no guarantee I can move fast enough while carrying her to evade those pricks either. Think, think, think... I could probably use the trees as cover well enough if I zigzag through them but... She looked at the child who by know had one hand on her chest and her eyes closed, facing the sky. No good, she's still too exhausted. There's too much space between here and the patch. Even if I can move fast enough outrun them while carrying her, there's a huge risk that they'll hit me before I can get to where the forest is denser!

Her thoughts were then interrupted by the sound of a stick snapping in the forest ahead of them. From both sides! She looked inwards and saw a young boy, barely older than the red-skinned girl. He was wearing clean, cotton clothes, the shirt appeared threaded below the collar. He had red hair and a chiseled face that made him look older than he actually was. His amber eyes were both emotionless and riddled with some kind of insatiable desire.

"It's the head warrior's son!" One of the men yelled who had now crossed the creek.

He is with them then. Luna thought to herself and gave him a long hard stare whilst adopting a combat stance without exposing any fraction of her to the archers behind her. He stopped in front of her, returning her stare. He looked at her ears and tail then looked at the child. His expression didn't change at all nor did he make any immediate moves to attack. Is he hesitating?

The child then opened her eyes and looked up at him. Luna saw a glimmer appear in her eyes as though she recognized him. "Sweetheart..." She muttered as though she was remembering something and Luna wondered if she knew what she was saying.

The boy then walked past them and instead approached the man who had crossed the creek before the others. He was now almost to the tree line as the others were just getting to this side. "Wait here." The boy instructed in a low tone.

"They're behind you!" The closest hunter yelled at him. "What are you-?" He was cut off as the boy walked right up in front of him and hit him across the face with the back of his hand. Instead of the man simply flinching though, his head blew in a cloud of red mist and fragments of bone scattered across the stone field.

The other two jumped back in surprise, one falling into the creek and the other swinging wide to try and get around the boy as well as get some distance. "Fenrir." The boy said quietly and a blinding light appeared behind him. From it came a giant black wolf that was almost as tall as the trees. It dashed towards the fallen hunter and pounced on him. The water in the creek began to turn a shade of red as the large wolf not only crushed him with its front paws but also bit furiously at any fragment of his exposed body.

"That isn't your familiar..." The last hunter began to cry nervously. "What the hell are you doing?" He asked, his voice quavering. Without answering, a series of orange runes appeared on the boy's right arm, burning his sleeve as it went up though without actually burning his skin. "No, no, no, please don't! I'll let them go and I won't tell anyone that you're-!" The boy snapped his fingers and held his right arm out straight to his side. The Hunter's eyes then lit ablaze followed by a roaring flame appearing in his mouth. In only a fraction of a second, patches of fire combusted all over his body and his entirety was engulfed in a raging blaze as his bloodcurdling screams echoed along the surface of the creek. When the flames died down, nothing but a pile of ash remained. Even the bones had been burned all the way through.

Luna slowly came out of her hiding place, watching the boy in order to make sure he wouldn't turn on her now. The large black wolf sat peacefully in front of what remained of the panicked hunter's corpse. When they made no immediate moves again to attack her, she ran to the child's side and picked her up. She then took her to the creek, upstream from where the wolf had torn through his target, and bade the child drink something. She cupped water in her hands and held it up to the child's mouth who was struggling but trying to sit up as straight as possible. She sniffed the water first, then greedily drank whatever was offered to her.

The boy approached them but the wolf seemed to disappear entirely much to Luna's confusion. "I had him return to his private domain." the boy explained, as though he had read her mind.

"Why were those hunters after her?" She asked. "And why were they wielding such outdated weaponry?"

The boy placed one hand on the child's cheek and her eyelids began to close with some resistance. "I'll watch over you here. Sleep as much as you need to." He told her and allowed her to rest her head against his chest then he looked up at Luna. "That weaponry is rather modern for the era we- well, they and I- live in."

Luna squinted at him. "Last I checked, assault rifles were the primary weapons in this era." She questioned then after a moment of thinking she inquired, "Why did you start to say 'we' then change to 'they and I'?"

"Is it not obvious?" he told her as he stroked the child's hair. "You are merely a visitor in this era." Before she could question him further, the boy changed the subject. "They were after her because they're afraid of what she is. Humans tend to alienate and fear anything that can rival their intelligence."

"So why did you help her? Aren't you human?"

The boy shook his head. "Only partially. As for my reason..." he turned quiet and looked up at her. His left eye then briefly turned completely white and when colour returned to it, his pupil had turned into a vertical line, much like a reptile. His iris disappeared and circling the inner perimeter of his sclera was three curved, stationary triangles which all pointed counter-clockwise centred on his pupil. Luna's left eye then began to throb very painfully and she winced in response. She placed one hand on the ground to steady herself and the other over her eye, grunting in pain. "Simple hatred." The boy finished.

Luna's eye continued to throb and the pain grew exponentially worse by the second. She dropped to her knees now clutching it with both hands, gritting her teeth together, resisting the urge to cry out in turmoil. She felt as though her entire body was being crushed by a gravitational force many times stronger than the Earth's and it took all of her strength to merely look up at the boy and then some to comprehend his words.

"Abaddon." He mentioned casually without context then pointed at the red-skinned girl. "Lilith. The three of us will be very well acquainted over the next little while. For now though..." he instructed then leaned the little girl, Lilith, against Luna causing the pain to heighten further and she dropped her shoulders on to the rocks. "Bear with it a moment longer, will you?" He suggested smugly and removed his shirt. Runes traced both his arms up to his shoulders and his body grew visibly more muscular at a rapid rate. He rolled up the shirt into a ball and leaned Lilith over to him again but instead of having her rest on him, he had her rest on the ground using the bundled shirt as a pillow.

Abaddon then stood up and turned his back to the two girls. "They're coming, so you should be on your way." He stated simply. Luna attempted to raise her head again without success, tears formed in her eyes and her vision blurred. She then flopped onto her side unable to hold herself up in any regard anymore. On the ground, she could barely see ahead to what Abaddon was talking about. Downstream there appeared to be what could only be described as an infinitely large army of specters that matched the colour of Abaddon's eye. "I can hold them off for now, but you'll be on your own before long. When next we meet..." His last words trailed off and Luna heard his voice like he was speaking from underwater. She could do nothing but close her eyes.

At that moment she shot her body upwards violently with a short scream. She quickly scanned her immediate surroundings and noticed that she was now sitting up in her own bed. She inspected her attire, confirming that she was in a cotton nightgown instead of that wool dress from before.

"What the hell happened?" She said aloud and got out of bed, running immediately to her mirror. She paused and stared in bewilderment when she saw her left eye. It looked identical to the boy's eye from what she presumed to be a dream. She slowly started to reach up towards it but a knock on her door broke her focus.

"Luna? Are you all right?" Stella asked from the other side. "I heard you scream just now and it sounded like you got up in a hurry."

Luna took a second to gather her voice and replied, "Yeah, sorry. It was just the falling sensation thing." She looked back at the mirror and was dumbfounded once more as her eye had returned to normal. "What the hell?" She whispered.

There was a short pause but then, "I'll have breakfast ready momentarily." Stella continued to shout through the door, a hint of confusion and worry to her voice.

"Y-yeah, I'll be down in a moment. Just let me get dressed first." Luna called back and heard Stella turn away then start back down the stairs. Luna scanned the room once more before growling to herself once again, "What the hell?".