“Ha! The infant wishes to spar.” Portho laughed and slapped his knee, prompting an echoed reaction from the two dozen apes he sat with.

Portho, a pink orangutang who radiated an unassailable sense of strength, swung himself from the tree he was perched upon, and landed in the clearing Iago stood within. His landing cracked the ground beneath and sent a cloud of dust out in a ring around him. He rose to eight feet tall, his arms nearly the same length, as fast as whips and stronger than a falling tree. If a tree falls in the Forest, the odds are someone was around to hear it. If Portho’s arms fell, nobody would be left alive to tell the tale.

Among the defenders of the Forest, Portho was among an elite few who Iago was truly afraid of. In direct combat, he had good odds with the vast majority of the Forest barring his Master, Joa, Yuhata, and above all others, Portho.

“Perhaps you should scurry home before you do something you will regret, infant. Back to your sewer streets and barbaric peoples, and out of our hair.” Portho taunted Iago more; he was one of the beasts who hated humans with such a passion that no number of good deeds could erase the scar left on his heart from decades of combat. Maybe even centuries.

“Ready yourself, Portho.” Iago cracked his neck and held his blade out, hoping to flush out the unease he felt inside.

The grin vanished from Portho’s face. “This will end poorly for you, cub. I warn you; I’m far more lethal than Joa in these spars.”

“Shut up and fight me, Portho.”

The ape bared his fangs and struck. Portho twisted his entire body into one massive swing, using his arm like one giant club. It came down with enough force to level a building, and Iago only avoided it because he’d been calling upon his Master’s power before the conflict even began. He was reasonably sure Portho wouldn’t attack him on sight, but it never hurt to be cautious. He tried Portho’s defenses, pushing forward to thrust, but the ape gave him no ground. Calmly, the arm was swung to the side, forcing Iago to leap back and away or else get his feet swiped from under him. Portho limbered his other arm and the two began working in tandem; both moving like they had no bones, yet landing with stone crushing force upon anything they touched. Iago was pushed back, and he knew from experience that this was a mistake. There was no way he would survive long enough without getting within Portho’s range, so he used his other gift. The purple specks in his eyes deepened for a moment, and he stepped to the side. From the perspective of the onlookers, he simply took a step and vanished, reappearing behind Portho with his sword pulled back.

From his own perspective, he stepped to the side, and before his foot hit the ground, the world swirled, gravity around him seeming to double. Everything became shades of purple, black and white. There was no movement in this warped reflection, but he still had only a moment to make his decision. Any longer and he would be ejected in pain and nausea. His Master, he knew, could exist longer in this in-between, but his master was far more practiced, and far older. Despite his experiences, he was still an amateur.

He willed himself to appear behind the ape, and when his foot touched the ground, the colors returned in full, and he was facing Portho’s unguarded back. The ape reacted immediately, grabbing onto a pair of trees, pulling himself immediately away from Iago, snapping a kick as he went at the flat side of Iago’s blade. It landed with incredible force, pushing his strike into the dirt. He still didn’t let up the pressure – another step to the side and he appeared beneath Portho, his sword now pointed up to slice across the orangutang’s stomach. Portho twisted in the air as if he saw the strike coming beforehand, following it up with another kick. It struck Iago in the shoulder, sending a jolt of red-hot pain through the entire left side of his body. Iago was pretty sure his left arm was dislocated since it was hanging limp at his side. If he was being honest, after taking a direct hit from Portho he’d expected worse damage. It didn’t make it hurt any less, and only the rage that welled up inside him from the idea of dropping from a single of Portho’s strikes stopped him from falling to the ground in agony.

Portho laughed as he swung from tree to tree in a circle around Iago, branches creaking under the stress with every pass. “It’s like fighting a young Baikyo, were he declawed and emaciated.”

A chorus of laughs and hollers shook the trees his fellow orangutangs bounced upon, sending small birds flying away in panic, and leaves tumbling to the Forest floor.

Iago knew what Portho was doing. He was trying to rile him up – bait him into doing something stupid so he could have a “training accident” and conveniently be rid of him. It was hardly out of the ordinary in the Forest, especially for Portho. The laughter was meant to stoke the fire inside him, make him do something he would regret.

Unfortunately, he just didn’t care. Verte was dead. Baikyo was no help, Dannious seemed to think he would be turning on them any day, and despite dedicating his life to protecting the Forest, he still understood practically nothing about it. His life before the Forest was vague and hazy, as if it hadn’t existed before the sword of the Ancestral Tree was in his hands. That was the truth to an extent – he doubted he was anything particularly special beforehand if his skills had anything to do with that – and the thought didn’t bother him. Not often, anyway.

He was fed up and emotional, plain and simple. He stepped into the in-between, appearing directly in front of Portho, not even bothering to wait until he reappeared to begin his strike. By the time he exited the in-between and appeared before the orangutang, his thrust was mid-way through, and the tip of the blade was hardly a couple inches from entering Portho’s chest. Incredible strength or not, two feet of steel was nothing to shrug off easily.

He came face to face with the gleaming teeth of Portho’s smile, and just as Iago’s strike had already begun before he appeared, as had the apes. Both arms were converging in an ‘X’ motion upon where he appeared. Perhaps they would kill each other – though he found the idea unlikely, judging from Portho’s glee.

He expected his final thoughts to be peaceful; that’s what he always heard happened. Thoughts slowed; things became clear. Instead, he was only angry. Angry that he couldn’t save Verte. Angry that he knew practically nothing of the Forest despite living there for years. Angry at Portho’s smug fucking face. Angry at his own lack of ability.

A sub-zero dome of ice surrounded him in the blink of an eye, pale white in color and opaque. His sword pierced a few inches deep before rapidly halting, the ice it pierced through constantly regenerating and producing more. In moments, he had to use all of his strength to pull it free. Two thuds, distant as if from far away, sounded from either end of the dome. Portho’s strikes, no doubt. Incredibly, despite the strength, no cracks formed in the ice. It took the blow head on and held.

Ah. So Yuhata was nearby.

The ice dispersed into nothingness, leaving him with an unimpeded view of a light brown gazelle dusted in snow - despite the summer’s heat - staring at Iago and Portho both. Yuhata’s horns were pale blue and without the curves typical of her species, and her eyes were glassy grey speckled with white, like a snow globe.

“You’re both children, you know that?” She snapped at them, stomping one hoof in frustration. A foot long icicle conjured out of thin air embedded itself into a nearby tree, nearly pinning a lurking baboon to the bark. “I can hardly turn my back for two seconds before you imbeciles start trying to kill each other!” though her Awakened abilities were frosty; her temper was still as hot as Joa’s flames.

Even Portho cringed away, but he quickly masked it. “It isn’t my fault the imp-“

“Do you even hear yourself right now?” Yuhata yelled, and the grass in a 3-foot circle around her flash froze, some of them snapping in two from the sheer force behind it. “It isn’t my fault?” That’s your excuse? Let me guess; he started it? You’re an idiot, Portho!”

Iago tried to discreetly cough and sneak off to the side, but Yuhata’s head snapped to his own and gave him a withering glare.

“And you! What do you think you’re doing picking a fight with Portho? Do you want to die? I swear, you spend half your time in the furthest reaches of the Forest, risking your life fighting Mages, poachers and worse, and the other half you come back with a death wish, practically seeking out the worst possible ways to die!”

“In my defense, Baikyo told me to-“

“I don’t care what Baikyo told you to do! If you can’t tell by now that your Master’s perception is skewed, maybe I should have let Portho kill you a moment ago. Baikyo thinks it’s funny to appear on branches behind our patrols and startle them into falling, no matter the height. He is not normal, and to be frank, is an asshole!” A ten-foot tall and four-foot-wide sheet of ice shot out behind her, spreading around a nearby tree like an enclosed fist. She turned around, shocked, and then turned back, her anger tempered slightly by embarrassment.

“Right. As I was saying before I had to save your lives,” she said, pointedly staring at them both, “Both of you are requested at the council meeting.”

In unison, Portho and Iago groaned. They didn’t see eye to eye on most things, but they did share a hatred of council meetings. Once every six months, old Awakened beasts pitched increasingly idiotic ideas for how to solve the growing poaching crisis, rife with fundamental misunderstandings of their defenses, and no less than a half dozen hours of mind-numbing bureaucratic nonsense and resource allocation. Iago would rather fight to the death – and he had, multiple times - instead of attending a meeting.

“A-a-a! Before you complain,” Iago and Portho both shut their mouths, “Too bad. You must attend, by right of Defensive Summons. No weaseling your way out this time.”

Iago and Portho let out another chorus of groans.

“Who invoked that?” Portho growled.

“Nubias.”

Iago gave her an incredulous look. What did Nubias want with Portho, let alone himself? Nubias was very direct about his dislike for both Iago and Portho, as both were consistent supporters of Dannious when it came to council business and running the Forest. Simply put, he had a better understanding of their military and defensive capabilities, which put Dannious into Portho and Iago’s good graces, while Nubias simultaneously believed they were so weak a small band of poachers and a stiff wind could bowl them over, and powerful enough that were it not for Dannious’ cowardice, the poachers would never dare come near the Forest.

He shook his head. That wasn’t an important train of thought right now. He moved to sheath his sword but hissed in pain as he tried to move his dislocated arm. Yuhata took notice. Her gaze softened slightly and walked over, still muttering something about children and scraping their knees.

“Portho.” She demanded, jerking her head in the direction of his limp limb. The massive ape lumbered over unhappily, snorting in brief pleasure at Iago’s pain.

Yuhata bowed her head briefly, and a cold light blue glow emanated from his shoulder, the pain reducing from an angry inferno to merely a dull throb. Portho raised one finger and, less gentle than Iago was sure he could manage, unceremoniously shoved it back into place. A spike of pain bypassed Yuhata’s efforts but was quickly quelled, and the pain and cold sensation both began to gradually fade away, until only a sting and mild stiffness remained.

“Better?” Yuhata asked. Portho turned and began walking away, shooing his lackeys away as they began to approach in his wake.

Iago nodded in thanks to both of them while rolling the shoulder to rid it of stiffness, sheathed his sword, and turned in the direction of the Ancestor Tree.