So, Isa saw those monsters. They could act despite the presence of a witness while I could only fight my anxiety attacks.

My hands felt cold, my breath was short, and my spine quivered. Sitting in a crouch, I made sure my hood remained where it should. My cloak was open at the front, so, if I didn't hold it together, Isa might see the grey sweater.

It was one of those situations. Situations where I speak in front of the whole class or deal with people I don't like. Being nervous never makes anything better, but I always feel nervous around others. Particularly around people like Isa who didn't know me very long and who I didn't want to judge me.

But she didn't judge me. Instead, she approached me slowly and had her voice low as she spoke. "Y-you're one of those urban legend superheroes we had at school, aren't you?"

"Yes!" I said in a muffled, rasping voice.

I didn't think before I spoke, but I feigned confidence. Most people laughed at the idea that Superman became Clark Kent by putting on glasses. But it wasn't just how he looked, but also how he acted. No-one would believe that this flying demigod was a dorky reporter. So, I straightened my back and tried to sound as powerful and wise as possible while hiding the shy Marissa under the cloak.

I couldn't turn around to judge her reaction or to see if her cellphone was recording everything, lest she'd see my face. Bi-bi-di-ba-bi-di-bo.

Fortunately, I didn't have to talk much, as Isa was willing to take the initiative.

"Do you know that video where a woman dressed in black fought a vampire?" she asked.

"Yes." That was the video that got Mom in trouble.

"Cool! I saw it, too, and I gave her the nickname 'Night Witch'. How about I call you like that, too? Witches are cool, and you've got a cat, and I've been looping Sabaton all summer, and-"

She lurched before she could finish the sentence. Isa normally had more energy than coffee and could talk until her breath ran out. But now, her eyes closed, her back refused to stay straight, and her life energy left her body as it went to the helltree.

While my steel pipe had stunned the monster for a moment, it wasn't sleeping.

I wanted to catch her, but even I could barely move a foot.

"Ah, the hound venom still works," Siris whispered inside my head. "Your body is soon gonna look like my scratch tree if you're lucky. If not, you'll learn the meaning of true despair."

I'd rather look it up in a dictionary.

Unfortunately, the helltree had bulked up. Its black "suit" now clearly revealed itself to be bark. Its thin body had grown into a thick trunk while its faceless head template looked more and more like a stump. Spikes, eye-ball-shaped seeds, and knotted ivy vines decorated its wooden plates.

But it didn't just look bigger and scarier than before. No. It also learned new tricks. The immobile tree monster learned how to move its tendrils. And, like an ambush predator, it was about to snatch Isa.

"Isa, no!" I screamed as loud as my lack of breath allowed.

I jumped forward and tackled Isa out of the way.

The helltree snatched me faster than a chameleon tongue. The tendrils coiled around my ribcage like a Boa constrictor and squeezed the breath out of my lungs. Like a crane, they hefted me into the air and moved me closer to the monster.

I realized that, as the demon had grown, the mire had spread and engulfed the entire boiler room. Vines covered the door to the outside while the mire started consuming the walls and everything surrounding the water pot.

And I saw Simon behind the monster. He was still alive, even if his eyes remained pitch black and he looked as miserable as sin.

He pointed at a thread around his neck. Some kind of necklace whose pendant disappeared under his sweater. Was it why he survived?

I moved a few fingers towards him. This time, the levitation had to work. It didn't work on my bag, but I didn't have Siris' back then.

My fingers shivered. I needed a staff. Or a rod. That would have helped to direct the energies where they needed to go. With how the coiling, choking helltree vines squeezed the air out of my lungs, even an incantation for better focus was vastly beyond my capacities.

The most I could manage was a mere hand gesture. The plan was to call up a cloud of ectoplasm and bring the necklace to my hand, but my familiar had different thoughts.

Siris materialized, plunged down, grabbed Simon's necklace, and revealed its pendants: A crucifix, a rabbit foot, a four-leaved clover, and most importantly, an upward hanging horseshoe forged of pure iron. Ancient cultures used those as good luck charms to keep evil witches away (how ironic...).

Thank you, Simon! You came prepared! (Unlike me)

Through a mix of my life energy and the ambient aether, I formed a cloud around Siris which kept the horseshoe hovering static in space.

I did it! I made an object fly with my mind!

You can't believe how I felt. I might have been on the verge of death, but I at least accomplished one magic trick in my life.

Adrenaline kept me awake and focused even as the squeezing vines deprived me of oxygen.

It was still floating. Magic required energy, like everything, and making the energy flow where we wanted it to flow was the bread and butter behind levitation exercises.

With one last spark of my will, I let the horseshoe float against one of the demon's spikes.

The cold iron pressed against its bark and made the demon drop me.

I landed on my back, gasping for air like a stranded fish before I climbed to my feet. My tattered cloak had been torn even further, revealing holes that reached well into my sweater underneath.

The demon was still alive. It would soon recover from the shock, but the iron didn't make it dissolve or anything. It was very much a physical being. Despite the horseshoe still hanging in the demon's spikes, hugging against the paper-dry ivy leaves, the monster twitched.

It'd snap out of its paralysis if I didn't end it right here.

Unfortunately, my mental stamina hit rock bottom. I could barely even stand, let alone focus.

Through my blurry vision, I saw Isa walking closer.

She hadn't dropped dead yet. She carried her flintstone and threw it to me. She was trying to help me.

"Roast ... it," she said before she collapsed into the mud.

"Siris," I asked, "its body behaves like normal plants, doesn't it?"

"Yep!" he answered. "It might have been built with help from elemental spirits and organic compounds in the ground."

"Just tell me if I can set it on fire!"

"Why don't you test it?"

I picked up the baseball bat I used against the Barghest. Pine tar covered its handle and, as I learned in a documentary, that sticky substance not only made it easier to hold, but it was also flammable.

Much like my black robe, to be honest. I slipped out of it before accidentally setting it on fire, too.

With Isa's matchstick, I ignited the sticky handle of my bat. I grabbed the bat by its end cap, and, before the fire consumed the barrel, I ran over to the demon as fast as possible.

Don't try this at home, kids.

I tossed the incendiary wood against the demon's dry ivy leaves and watched the fire spread. I stepped back.

Bye-bye, Slender Man. I used to write fanfics of you, but now it ends.

The helpless demon realized what happened. The paralysis from the iron wore off, but it couldn't run away anymore. The flames devoured its bottom trunk while sparks ignited its branches, too.

One last hit with the flaming bat and the demon's head template burned, too.

The demon's aether spirit streamed out of the tree-like vessel and dispersed in the environment, making it too scattered to act any further.

Finally.

I survived. No, we three survived. And this was what mattered in the end.

I protected them like Mom protected me back in the day.

But we still needed to get out of this somehow.