*kakkak* *kakkak* *kakkak* *kakkak* *kakkak* *kakkak*

A tiger-horse drawn wagon rolls alone upon the aisle that leads up to my house.

“Marcus, your ride is here.”

“Ok.”

“It is good to see you again marcus. I hope you have followed my instruction to not summon your tree”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now with that settled, time for all of us to head to the academy. We have 3 days of journey ahead of us.”

I look around at the eight other kids and see that seven of them were all red-eye. It seems that parting is really harsh for them. I can’t blame them, we are all age five from how everyone sees it.

Inside this wagon there was really nothing much to see. there were the 9 of us and 3 adult, 1 sleeping, 1 driving the wagon and the skilled master. The wagon was just a cloth roofed cart that is 18 hands wide, 22 hands tall and 30 hands long, enough to seat three time the amount of kids and still have plenty of space to spare. It bugged me as to why we needed this much space when there is so little of us so i asked.

“Erm master, why is it that this wagon is so big? There is only 12 of us so why do we need such a big wagon?”

“”Call me Amy. I am of the house of Johnson. You see, we are travelling almost non-stop until we reach a town and the next town is about 1.5 days ride away. You kids need to sleep and where are you doing to do that if the wagon is not big enough? Any smaller all of you will have to hug each other to sleep.”

The other 8 kids who were listening in resounded in unison: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo”

Amy gave a wry smile

“When I first went to the academy many years ago, i sat with 3 villages’ kids. there were over 20 of us in a wagon half the size of this wagon. It was fine when we sat but when we slept, we were so close to each other that we cuddle back to back. Not to mention, the road is bumpy. we ended up all colorful when we reached the academy. Oh and who kicks when sleeping please raise your hand.”

After a brief moment of peace.

“No one? I am going to tie up the one who kicks another at night when sleeping if i find out”

After another brief moment of peace.

“Good. Guess no broken teeth this time round then. On my last trip i had one that kicks when sleeping and he took out another boy’s tooth”

All the kids covered their mouth that very instant suddenly fearful of the people around them.

*That ought to make sure they sleep with enough space from each other during the night.*

“No need to worry about it for now. We are not going to be sleeping so soon. While we are moving, everyone keep an eye out and look around. We do not know when a wild beast will appear as we travel. Since there are 9 of you, I will have the four of you look out for me while I rest for a moment. Wake me up if anything happens.”

Other than the occasional toilet breaks, meal breaks and wagon sickness from all that uneven group, the ride to the next town was rather uneventful. We were just about done with the forest that we were passing through and about another 2 hours ride away from the town. It was just when I thought all will be fine for this trip, distant screeching was heard coming from the west and it was coming closer.

“Hhhhhhheeeeeelllllllpppppppppp!!!”

“HHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEllllllllllllllllpppppppppppppppp!!!”

“HHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!”

Amy furrowed her eyebrow as she understood the problem. Wild beast attack and they are heading this way.

“Ok kids stay in the wagon and make no noise. Ivan, wake up Drake. The 2 of you protect the kids. Marcus, you are the only kid here that has a corporeal tree right now, if anything happens i permit you to use it. Remember you only have enough power for one hit and you will faint. Aim for the largest part of the beast so that you will not miss.”

Ivan stops the wagon and gets up while saying: “OK. I will go wake him up.”

“OK. I will do my best but if the beast is too strong for us what do we do?”

“my tree is a fire crane so if it bad, shout for me to alert me. i will make it fly over as soon as possible to help.”

With that amy rushed over to help knowing that every minute counts.

The clock ticked away as we awaited her return, after about 10 minutes or so, the screeching noises lessened but it got louder. Everyone understood that the battle would be soon upon us. the nine of us huddled together while the 2 adults kept a lookout on the 2 side of the wagon

SCREEEEEEECH~~

A small bird appeared within our line of sight followed by another and then another, they numbered to hundreds in a brief moment of time. They were really loud given their numbers.

Ivan looked at the birds with dismay “Nature and Chaos hybrid. Everyone be careful. They may not be fast but they have the numbers. This won’t be easy battle.”

all the other kids flinched at those words and huddled together even closer with that in mind,

a horse-buffalo appeared before Ivan and started charging towards those bird. A buffalo-horse appeared before Drake but it did not charge but circled around the wagon.

Ivan:“We are brothers. Our father’s tree is a horse and our mother’s tree is a buffalo. so we kind of took on a little of each.”

Drake added with a chuckle: “Our father keeps insisting that he’s is a stallion and not just any horse.”

“Who here has a fire or light element tree? We may need some distraction later.”

“Me.” a girl whom I think the name is Janice meekly replied

“Later, i want you to send your tree towards the forest in Amy’s direction. Lesson kids, the interesting thing about Nature and Chaos type hybrid, Nature type goes towards light usually, and Chaos type has a certain level of unpredictability. These two combined has a funny weakness we can use, bright object attracts their attention and they will charge towards it usually. So when i say now, send it out.”

“Erm, OK. i will try my best.”

Brute force. Absolute brute force. That was all I could think of as I saw Ivan’s horse-buffalo charging through the birds. The birds meshed into each other with its charge and those that survived were crushed under its hooves. Every minute hundreds fell, but hundreds took its place. Soon a circle of birds gathered and there was still no end in sight of them.

PHOEBEEEEEEEEEEE~~~~~

A torrent of flame flew by leaving a fiery path in its wake.

PHOEBEEEEEEEEEEE~~~~~

Another torrent appeared and hundreds died again.

With each call, the forest slowly became silent.

Amy soon appeared with her crane as she lead those survivors she just saved to the wagon.

“Looks like we are going to have a good haul. Can’t let the kids do it though, they are still too young. As a reward for saving you folks, we are taking all the core fragments. we will spend another hour here to rest up and collect the core fragments”

As the Survivors patched themselves up, Amy, Drake and Ivan went and cleaned up the battlefield. the survivors soon joined in to collect the fragments.

“423 small fragments, 85 medium fragments and 20 large fragments. not a bad haul.” Ivan said after counting for the third time.

“let's see, the 9 of you will get a little of each. We got plenty more than i expected. You kids will need them soon anyway. You survivors have no complaints right? ” Amy glared at them with daggers in her eyes

The bunch of survivors tensed up and all agreed.

The wagon soon started moving again. I looked at the little shiny stones in my hands, 20 small fragments, 5 medium fragments and 1 large fragment. I wonder what they are used for and asked but none of the adults were willing to say. They all said the same thing though: “You will learn about them in the academy.”

during the 2 hour journey to town, the survivors talked about how they ended up in that predicament.

After listening to their story, I agreed that they were idiots.

They wanted to breed those birds. many people have tried and succeed. They wanted to do the same too. They managed to sneak in to grab those bird eggs. At first they grabbed about 10 of them and all was fine but they got greedy. They saw a bigger egg that they knew belong to the royal line of those birds and they wanted to breed that too. All the breeders know not to touch the royal line because the whole nest will come after them if the eggs is taken. They saw that it was guarded but parents were nowhere in sight. they picked off the guards and stole the eggs.

They left immediately but they did not know the eggs was marked. They left a scent trail for the birds to follow which resulted in what we saw.

“So what happened to the royal eggs?” i asked.

The survivors looked at Amy and said: “Not with us.”

Drake and Ivan smirked and Amy looked as if nothing happened. The other kids did not understand but i understood that Amy now hold those eggs.

Not bad for a chick.