EG Monster Island Chapter 25

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

Enjoy bonus chapter! Now hopefully the smoke goes away soon so I can go out and write more (I write better not at home, but don't want to hang out too long at a restaurant/brewery with COVID still a problem. You know, since my kids can't get vaccinated yet.)

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

“Sia, can you and Zim scout? Carefully,” I asked. Sia nodded at me from his spot on a tree branch, then leapt off it. He shrank a little, his flames dimming and turning blue. Zim flowed by, making no sounds as he flew. Even though he was white and couldn’t change colors yet, I could barely follow him.

“I will scout too, go slow,” Bridget signed to us, before carefully moving out of our sight.

I sank into my center, tracing the firebird runes formed when I Bonded Sia in worry. On a whim, I pushed a bit of Aether into the rune encompassing its head. I felt something, a pressure in my eyes and ears that was uncomfortable but not painful. Not something to play with now, but maybe I’ll be able to figure out what that rune does, I thought before leaving my center.

I spent the next few minutes trying to figure out more about the Beasts surrounding the Formation. Small specks of Fire Aether were occasionally visible in the above us, giving me glimpses of Sia. Similar tiny indications showed Bridget sneaking around the edge of the glade the Formation was in.

The Aether from the Beasts was wrong. They were mostly Earth and Fire, skipping Metal entirely. That wasn’t impossible but was fairly rare in Beasts. It also felt slimy, oozing around the perimeter of the clearing.

“The creatures are amorphous,” Sia sent, “but mostly humanoid. Red skin, scales like a lizard, but their form is able to shift. A level one bunny entered the clearing and one of them stretched an arm two meters long to spear it. It was cooked from the inside by the attack. They appear to be waiting for someone to pop out of the Formation.”

“Interesting,” I sent back, “They are Earth and Fire Aether, but more Earth than Fire.”

“Lava, then, but I’ve never heard of something like these,” Sia answered me. “Air, Water, and Ice will be best.”

“Got it,” I turned to the others and quietly repeated Sia’s report.

“They also seem to be avoiding burning the ground,” Jon said.

“Huh, I wonder why?” I shrugged my shoulders. “So what do we do about this? Wait for whatever they are waiting for, or try to disrupt their lines so we can reach the Formation and be transported away?”

“Wait,” Vaya said authoritatively. “This feels wrong, and we need to know why. They might have some way of signaling their target or ruler or whatever is coming to not come if we attack.”

Jon and Bridget’s hard faces made me nod. “Let’s get as close as we can. Hold your aura’s in as best you can, use any stealth technique you’ve got,” I nodded as I moved forward, slowly drawing on my (Stealth name) Technique to blend my form into nothingness. I’d gotten much more proficient in the technique, and could now walk at a slow walking pace.

Bridget stepped in front of me, leading us all into a hollow between two trees. A small gap had formed between the trunks and a large holly bush. Thankfully, it was barely Aether infused at all, so the spines had no chance of actually harming us. I carefully settled into a crouch, looking through the bush to see the creatures that Sia had described.

They were disturbing to look at. Generally humanoid with a face like a chameleon. The scales around the closest one’s eyes suddenly sank inward, and the eyeballs extended out from its skull on stalks. It looked around, swiveling them to cover two hundred seventy degrees each before they sank back into the skull. Another flexed its hands, claws coming out of the three fingers to scrape through a rock, before it raised its arm and all the fingers merged into a single solid hammer shape to shatter what was left of it. Their red coloring seemed to become greenish for a second, making me slightly nauseous to look at.

It’s like that one color experiment Jasmine told me about, where they were able to make some people see reddish green. Not supposed to be able to see it without eye trackers, so why now? Is this an Aether thing, or a weird creature thing? I thought, then shuddered when the color changed again. Weird creature thing.

We settled in to wait and keep watch, though only Sia and Zim actually looked at the creatures. All the rest of us were unable to look at them for more than a minute before becoming seriously ill. Nothing happened for nearly three hours, while I focused on using my Aether senses to follow them more closely. After an hour, I’d been able to narrow down their positions to within a meter or so and tried to get a better handle on their Aether.

The slimy feeling was stronger and gave me a similar nausea as the color of the creature. After a while, I got used to it, so that at least was a benefit of forcing myself to study them.

Finally, something happened. The Formation started to glow, growing brighter by the second, until it flashed bright enough to make one of the creatures squeal in pain. The light faded, revealing an Ashkhas woman standing in the center. She was middle aged, with mostly tan fur that faded slightly at the edges. She was wearing a purple robe with a symbol of balanced scales on it. Her predatory yellow eyes glared furiously at the Beasts in the clearing.

She had no weapon, but it's not like a Foundation Core-level Gatherer truly needed one. Darkness, I thought, feeling her aura. “Sia, could you beat her?” I asked him.

“Not if the Beasts interfere. We could combine our capabilities, but that would leave the rest for the others,” he sent back.

“What do you mean?”

“Similar to the area attacks you learned. If I set up the runes, you can supply extra Aether with your Affinities. It will only work for us because of the Bond.”

“What if we sent an attack down into the scattered Beasts first, reduce how many of them there are?”

“It might work, but hush, she’s speaking.”

I refocused on the clearing to find all of the Beasts were crouched on all fours, heads bowed towards the Ashkhas. “Have you killed the Craesti?”

“No, mistress,” the strongest of the chameleons hissed. “They have not been spotted yet to engage. We scoured the likely paths of travel and followed for a brief period, but a Badger beyond us destroyed the trail. We tried to locate them, but failed. Forgiveness, mistress.” It groveled in the dirt, flattening its body to show contrition.

“You lost them,” she growled. Her face screwed up in rage and her aura blasted out, forcing the Beasts to the ground.

I felt her anger, barely remaining standing under its pressure, then Sia landed on my shoulder. I held still, having felt him approach. He butted his head into my cheek, then hopped to the ground in front of me. His collar fell off, and I very carefully picked it up, making sure not to move too quickly and disturb the bush or disrupt my technique.

“Then I will find them,” I heard the Ashkhas say, then a wave of Aether shot through the jungle, erupting upwards at every one of us and every Beast that happened to be nearby, except Sia and me. Sia deflected it around himself, while it just went through me, ignoring me completely due to my technique. This technique is awesome! “You fools, they are there!” She pointed where Jon, Bridget, Kami, and Lampart were watching them from.

Vaya was farther back, and with the shout she slammed her swords into the ground. Hundreds of vines exploded among the Beasts, trapping almost all of them. The crushing effect was mostly useless against them, however, so it was up to the rest of us to capitalize on the disruption.

The others exploded out into the clearing, flinging techniques at the Beasts. “Get on!” Sia commanded me. I jumped, and Sia expanded, reaching a wingspan of six meters in an instant. He burst forward, shattering the trees and obliterating two Chameleons with a casual brush of his wings. A level five Beast shot a ball of Fire at Sia, earning only a snort of contempt and a beam of Air that shredded it. “Merge with me, focus on Lightning and Air Affinities.”

“Got it,” I replied, moving my hands to rest over a meridian he had that ran between his wings and into his Core. I focused on connecting our centers, flowing Aether between us like when we gathered. We merged within a few seconds, Sia banking over an attack from the Ashkhas cultist. She did something, and the air that we had been flying through was ripped apart, a vacuum forming there for a second.

Sia flapped up, a wave of Fire spreading into the clearing away from the others. A shield of some kind formed over the enemy, breaking the attack apart. The Beasts caught in the attack were freed from their viney prison, but seemed to almost melt to the ground. They were still moving, but were unable to maintain a shape.

A beam of destruction clipped Sia’s wing, and I sent even more of my Aether into him. He folded his wings, flames exploding from his body, and dove. The Ashkhas gestured, another beam shooting at us, but he blocked it and sent a blast of Fire and Air. She stepped forward, moving a dozen meters in a casual movement, and the teleport Formation was enveloped in a cone of swirling flames. Hopefully that thing still works, I thought.

“Focus on your Lightning and Metal Affinities. Those are still much higher than mine,” Sia said.

“Here ya go,” I sent back, then focused on my Lightning and Metal Aether. I ran the Aether through the head of the Firebird in my center, then through my life meridian. I focused on the feeling of Lightning, the smell of ozone, that one time I got zapped pretty good by a piece of lab equipment, then on the feeling of steel under my fingers, the taste of iron in my mouth when I cut my lip, the smell of forging a knife back on Earth, and the crystalline structures that metal was made of. I passed that Aether, which had started to glow slightly brighter in the yellow and silver that they existed in, to Sia, and felt his meridians strain.

“How did you make your Lightning bolts travel farther again?”

“Send a tightly bound bolt of Fire first, it will create a path for the Lightning to travel,” I patted his back as his wings snapped open. His talons ripped apart two Chameleons, the Ashkhas dodging with her movement technique yet again.

I glanced over at the others. They’d charged forward, attacking the closest Beasts quickly and destroying them under a barrage of attacks before immediately backpedaling to a gap between two massive trees. There was eight meters between them, but Jon and Kami held it against a dozen of the Beasts, while Vaya healed and disrupted their movements. Zim slashed one of the creatures as I looked, a spreading smear of frozen rock extending away from the wound. He dodged a few attacks, blocking one, before he dove behind Jon to recover. Flashes of movement to either side showed Lampart and Bridget were preventing a few other Beasts from flanking the group.

Sia started to build runes around himself, and I saw the double layered attack he was planning on making. “You’re messing up a couple of the runes,” I sent him, mentally reaching out and adjusting three runes slightly. He screeched, clawing at the Ashkhas to force her to use her movement technique. Right when she landed, he sent a flood of Aether that would have obliterated me into the runes. More was pulled from the atmosphere, the runes gathering up more Aether, and a massive ball of Fire shot out towards her.

She held up a hand, forming that same shield, and it split the technique yet again. She smirked, “Is that the best you can do? I am going to destroy you in the name of ….”

“Nope,” Sia sent to her, and the Lightning technique he’d put together behind the Fire hit her before she could finish gloating. Her shield held for a split second, but then shattered under the combined technique and she screamed. Another wave of Fire was shot out, but she dodged sideways, blurring over the intervening distance.

I formed a quick series of runes in the same way I’d adjusted Sia’s earlier, and a blast of Lightning enclosed by Metal formed and shot at her. Sia was the main supplier of Aether, and just behind it another ball of Fire. Sia dove suddenly, and I felt my shield over my head engage as the air above us shattered again.

She batted aside the Metal technique, only to be electrocuted as the Lightning sought the easiest path to ground through her. The stunning effect left her open to be immolated by Sia’s attack that followed behind mine. She staggered out of the attack, her fur all burnt off, and screamed in anger. A massive wave of destruction exploded out from her. A swirling shield of Fire formed around Sia, and I reinforced it as best I could. Five percent is still an improvement, I thought, holding tightly to him.

The rest of the Chameleons, at least a dozen, exploded as the wave flowed through them. Jon moved in front of Kami, and I could see his Shield Inscription firing off with every bit of Aether he had left. Vaya dove to the ground, her shield forming over her back as she burrowed down. The others sheltered behind one of the trees. The clearing was destroyed, everything there either dead or sheltered behind a shield.

A pop sounded as Jon’s Inscription Shield overloaded, and failed. His skin was covered with Ice, as was his physical shield. They blunted the attack slightly, but he was still blown back. He slammed into Kami, and they both slammed into the tree they had been sheltering next to. Vaya was lifted from the ground, most of the energy missing her but enough impacted her Inscription Shield to break it and send her tumbling backwards.

“Jump off and hide with your technique!” Sia shouted at me.

I leapt off his back, pushing Aether into my stealth technique and an Aether Shield. Sia’s shield extended up and over me, holding under the onslaught by a thread. It collapsed soon after, and Sia was blown upwards and away from me. I dropped my shield, engaging the Dancing Northern Wind Technique to stand mid-air, then I jumped forward to a spot directly above the enemy.

Sia collapsed his wings and dove at the Ashkhas. “You think you can best me, Beast!” she laughed haughtily. “I will strip the feathers from your body and use them in my pillows.”

Sia blasted at her again, shooting downward below me, reaching her in the time it took to move to the second Air step in midair, heh. Fire and Lightning shot at her, landing on a renewed shield. The shield held until he physically ran into it, a blade of Metal Aether extending from each of his talons as his wings flared. The shield shattered, but his momentum was mostly spent.

The cultist caught his talons and screamed a technique. An icicle shot out of her mouth, blunting slightly in his Fire aura before puncturing into him slightly and knocking him into the sky once more.

I leapt off my perch right when he impacted her, charging both of my trisula with every bit of Aether that I could.

“You are nothing!” the Chaos crazy woman called out to the recovering Zarorzel, channeling another technique in her arms. She lifted them into the air, pointed at my Bond, when I slammed into her unshielded shoulders point first with my weapons. They stabbed into her, and I discharged the Aether into her. My Core shook uncomfortably, and my eyes widened when I saw how much Essence was in it. A surge shot out, following my Aether into her, and ravaged her insides. I rammed into the ground behind her, still holding on, and the blades cut downward slightly, but caught on her scapula.

She didn’t die. She screamed in agony, but was able to reach over her shoulders, grab my wrists, and throw me into the air.

A beam of Fire and Air ripped through the Foundation Core gatherer, distracted by my attack. Sia had recovered enough to hit her with another powerful technique. The air was quiet, every Chameleon dead and all other Beasts either hiding or fled. The only bit left of the Ashkhas was her boots. I flipped through the air for a second, then Sia was under me. I landed with a small thud, holding him tightly for a second.

“Sia, Vaya!” I screamed, and he turned and dove. We were at her side in less than five seconds. He slammed into the ground, and I rolled off his back, landing next to her. I pulled out a healing pill and shoved it into her mouth. I followed it with a burst of Aether, sending healing energy into her head. She stirred and opened her eyes. They didn’t focus, but I knew she’d be fine. “Focus on healing yourself,” I whispered, then ran over to Jon and Kami. Another pill went into Jon’s mouth, followed by three healing powders to his shoulder, stomach, and leg before I turned to Kami and used up another three powders to coat his injuries.

Bridget staggered over, bleeding still from a cut on her leg and forehead. “You okay?” She asked, focused on Jon.

“Yeah. I think he’ll be okay, too. Kami,” I started, and the pangolin waved at Bridget.

“She will be fine. Thank you for the powders,” Bridget said, then she collapsed next to Kami and Jon, her leg bleeding. I moved towards her, but she shook her head. “Find Zim and Lampart. Make sure they’re okay.”

I nodded, rushing around the tree. Lampart was licking a bleeding rear leg. I handed her a powder. She accepted it, manipulating the container with a stream of Earth Aether. I rushed off, trying to find Zim. Finally, I found his crumpled form. Powders were dumped into his mouth, onto his chest, wings, leg, and I started to pump Aether into him. I’d never gotten the hang of healing others, even with Jamila and Vaya both trying to teach me at times, but anyone could use a flood of Aether.

Sia landed next to me, dropping a Beast Core from somewhere into Zim’s mouth. His beak shot down and shattered the Core, letting the energy from it flow into Zim. “He will live, but he has taken too many injuries in too little time. He will need a lot of time and resources to recover.”

“At least he’ll live,” I replied. “We can fix anything else from there.” I carefully picked Zim up, and he hooted in agony and hope. “I’ve got you. Come on, let’s go home.” I carefully walked back to where Vaya was. She had struggled to a seated position, and I felt the Aether flowing into her as she gathered and healed. “Are you able to walk?”

“Yeah,” she said, reaching her arm up. I grabbed it and lifted her to her feat. Her arm wrapped my shoulder, and we limped over to Jon. Lammy hopped over, still favoring her left rear leg.

“Come on, to the transport formation,” I said. Kami, Jon, and Bridget struggled to their feet, until a bar of Air Aether formed in front of them courtesy of Sia. We all stumbled to the formation. I pushed Aether into the input, ready for the miserable experience of teleporting. After a minute, nothing happened.

“Well, now what?” Jon asked.