While Kohn struggled to escape from inside the monsters mouth El was arguing with it outside. Sasha and the other Earthlings didn’t know if they should try and fight the monster to rescue Kohn. The Armorer didn’t sit back down, but he relaxed when he saw El.

“Give him back! Don’t shake your head at me. Let him go. I ought to skin you, you ungrateful little spit! Wait, where are you going? Come back here!”

When she threatened to skin him the large ermine got scared and ran away.

The Armorer waved everyone to sit back down as El dashed after it at an incredible speed. Each step of hers left a foot print crater.

The ermine was scared when it looked back to see her catching up to it. Rotating in midair it slammed into the ground, bounced once more and then launched itself onto the wall. Somehow it caught purchase on something and crawled further up the wall in a zig zag motion. Almost as if it was anticipating the large dirt spikes that suddenly penetrated the thick stone. If it didn’t suddenly change direction all of the spikes would have been buried into its skull rather than the wall.

El screamed out in frustration. Stomping the ground furiously as she clenched her fists at her sides. She stood on level ground, but the dirt around her was disappearing every time she threw a spike. Pretty soon she was standing on a plateau in the middle a recess.

“Kukuku.”

The Ermine was laughing at her. All the spikes in the wall made it incredibly easy for it to cling to the wall and its body was winding through several of them.

Crack

“Ku-ku?”

As it was laughing a loud crack came from behind it. Cautiously it looked at the wall as Kohn took this moment to start bashing his knees into its nose while pulling its lips straight out.

The Ermine noticed a crack on the wall. It must have been thinking that that wasn’t there before. When the crack got bigger in quick bursts it followed along. Following the growing crack it made a circle around the Ermine until it came back to itself, disappearing into a hole made by one of El’s dirt spikes.

“Ku?” It cried out when its distraction disappeared.

CRACK!

The section of wall riddle with spikes that the alien Ermine was clinging to made a really scary noise as it slide out a couple inches. Realizing the danger it was in, it skedaddled out of harm’s way just in time to see the whole section of the wall fall to the floor below.

BOOOOOOOM-BANG!

The other animals were already scared from the previous loud noise and all the commotion between El and the Ermine. But hearing an even louder explosion drove them wild. They started ramming into the walls, fighting with each other and making all kinds of roars and cries. The few that could fly or climb the walls saw the Ermine rush out of the bright hole in the wall and quickly followed suit.

The others running around on the ground had split into two groups running in opposite directions along the base of the walls. When they met up in the middle they joined together, running straight into the Park’s entrance barrier. The ones in the lead slammed into it and were smushed by the others behind them. Eventually the mass and force behind them stressed the barrier until it broke and the stampede ran out of building.

The cries of people outside had El, the Armorer, the Earthlings and even Beyyele giving chase to the stampede.

“What happened? How did they get out?” The Armorer yelled at El.

“I just changed! Do you know how much magic that takes? Without the other staff here I couldn’t reinforce it because I was low on mana.”

“Why didn’t you say anything then?”

“I didn’t expect the wall to break apart! Or them to stampede a second time!”

“Well why did you change then?”

“It seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

They finally managed to catch up to the rear of the stampede as it was making its way down the shopping street.

People that had been previously walking around the streets had made a sudden rush to get into the stores before they locked their doors. After shutting themselves in a few used magic to create shields but most activated physical barriers. Reinforced stone shot out of the ground, completely covering the front of the store causing the animals to be funneled down the street.

“Try not to kill them!” El shouted to everyone. “If possible just tie them up.”

“With what?” The Earthlings shouted back in sync.

“Then just disable them! Aim for their legs or joints. Or deal a heavy blow to the back of their heads.”

El shot forward, a staff made out of bricks flew into her hands from a nearby store. Bending backwards she snapped the staff down on the head of a fat quadruped. Giving out a pitiful moan it collapsed to the ground unconscious.

For hours they chased the animals until the capital slanted towards the ground at a steep angle. Desperately their party clung to whatever they could. Except for El who stabbed her brick staff into the ground and stood upon it like martial artists from movies back on Earth. They watched as the animals, conscious and unconscious, slid down the streets and fell to the forests below the capital. The ones that could fly or cling to stuff were the only ones that remained as the capital flattened out its slant.

“Where is it?” El called out. With her hand covering her eyes she searched around before seeing a floating body with no head tiredly smacking at something. “THERE!” She yelled.

Her staff shot out with extreme force, spinning around and around.

WHOMP!

Hitting something invisible, the staff made the sound of impacting on flesh. The Ermine became visible again as the staff buried itself deep into its stomach. The impact made the thing vomit Kohn out of its mouth.

“WAA!” Kohn inhaled the fresh air deeply, his face a reddish blue. Covered in saliva he relaxed as the Ermine groaned in pain. “FREEDOM!” He tried to yell out, but all the viscous fluids on his face made him sound like he was trying to say “FREE PLUMS!”

Tired and disheveled, El swiftly made her way to him, but she was too slow. Bracing itself through the pain, the Ermine wrapped itself around Kohn. It made a series of clicks, chirps, purrs and growls as if it was speaking.

The Earthlings were confused, but El spoke back to it.

“I don’t care. If you run off again I’m going to seriously kill you!”

“Chu-chu-ku!”

“As long as you understand. Now. Why didn’t you obey me? I’m the one who tamed you!”

It spoke for a while before the two glared at each other. Unable to follow what was going on, Sasha tugged at El’s skin tight clothes.

“You can understand it? What’s it saying?”

“It’s saying that I’m not the one that tamed it. A stupid little monster boy tamed it. I’m just another annoying female. I am the one that tamed you! I just changed my sex!”

It spoke again.

“Yes I can do that! I was a man, and now I’m a woman, but I’m still the one that tamed you. What? Yes I am! Oh, don’t give me that!”

“I don’t understand?”

“What’s your name girl?”

“Sasha.”

“Alright Sasha, listen closely. I tamed it as a male, but it doesn’t like females and because I changed my sex it says that it doesn’t like me anymore. So it doesn’t want to hang around me. Kohn on the other hand has a pleasant smell that it likes so it wants to keep him as a pet.”

“It wants to make him its pet?”

“Hm? Oh yes. It’s very smart.”

“So what do we do?”

“Whatever. It is. Please. Hurry!” Kohn was still held in its grasp and started turning a funny shade of purple and blue.