Retreat had been the order of the day again. Saul had ignited a second backup patch of resin to give them enough time to escape. But the predators had trailed, and the mark made it almost impossible to mask himself in the intricate jungle, and Saul's injuries made it impossible to run quickly. So sooner than later, the beasts would catch up for round two.
And that was exactly what Pluto wanted. He wasn't going to let such resources wander off, but he needed to re-even the odds before that would happen. New location, isolation of prey – predator actually – and Saul out of sight, in case he needed to run when things got too crazy.
Before that, they needed to gather the cores of the dead. The three that had been partially burnt had proved weaker than their wounds and succumbed to death a bit later.
Pluto didn't not look at Saul as he gathered the cores, knowing that he had no intention of sharing. Five cores, more than he had seen since he arrived. Two were cracked from the explosion, but still brimming with almost equal vitality with the rest.
They warmed his hands, shielding him from the chilly weather of the forest. They pulsed too.
Pluto did not ask when he pressed against the first one, and Saul's silence said he wasn't against it.
The first one cracked under his squeezing, pushing energy into him. It wasn't much, way littler than battle seeds, but it was something. It carved a fissure inside him, pushing back pain and hunger.
He crushed the second. Then the third, then fourth and fifth. The last ones almost trembled out of his grip as he drew power from them. For the first time in days, he didn't feel like his body was running on E. Strength returned, not entirely, but sufficiently.
A grin fleeted across his face before he could stop it. He knew that pride was a killer more ruthless that any assassin, but he couldn't help but feel a little prepared, even though he knew not a single attack apart from caveman basics.
"Greedy crap," Saul muttered to him naggingly. Pluto heard him, but preferred to ignore. It was probably for the better.
Knowing how bitter Saul felt, he widened his smile and turned to him. "It's time to fight back."
It wasn't readiness vibrating in his voice, it was defiance.
***
Mira froze in her tracks, listening deeper to be sure she hadn't misheard. The shriek hadn't come from her, and needless to say, it didn't come from the owl either.
It had been aware enough to be human. Human enough to fracture with fear, and fearful enough to carry through thick mist. It was close, but the strange corridor space had blurred her judgement of distance.
She scanned the surroundings, eyes sweeping past every branch of every tree. Two possibilities presented themselves.
Either the corridor was unraveling.
Or someone else had been dragged into it.
The owl stiffened a bit, losing it gliding grace for a while before landing on a fallen tree. It tightened with subtle anger that brought the temperature down by a few degrees.
Mira knew before she was sure she knew. This had not been planned. The wooden stick she carried vibrated slightly, tension bleeding across its polished surface.
"What's happening?" She asked with a voice too sharp not to fear.
The owl's eyes gleamed a bit more dangerously than usual, not in bafflement, but in recalculation. It spoke with a voice that seemed to emerge from somewhere else that wasn't it's mouth.
"The flow of the corridor has been disrupted," it drew its feathers inwards, " It was not meant to happen, not yet."
Mira's pulse quickened in hope. "So the space pocket is being destroyed?"
The owl turned to her fully. " The corridor isn't a separate space dimension from the forest, like I said before it's just a part of it you have never been to. It's normal trees and mist, just with a bit of restrictions."
The ground trembled faintly as shadows raced across the width of it far away. Of course only the owl could see them. It narrowed its eyes thoughtfully.
"Stay put," it commanded as it moved ahead. Not hurriedly, but not with the same leisurely pace it had before. This was just to show Mira how unpredictable the forest was, that even its cryptic custodian of knowledge, would be caught unaware by some of the events.
She stood still on the spot she had been when she heard the shriek, fearing what disobeying the owl would cause. She was tension, but just as hopeful. The corridor was unraveling, and with a bit of luck, faster than the owl could mend it.
Maybe.
***
Memory was all that told Ronan that he had absorbed a core the night before. His legs were heavier and his strength back at baseline.
Khalifa was even worse off, which would explain was she walked ahead, not speaking no matter the prompt. She had to conserve her dwindling energy, and it seemed like a breath too deep was now wasteful spending.
Then they saw it. A predator sprawled halfway through swamp water, writhing slightly with every second. It wasn't dead, but was waiting for something to deliver it from its misery. The evidence of a battle that had taken place was there, but it seemed like the opponent of the predator had been too preoccupied to harvest this one.
Khalifa approached it, careful incase the weakness was an act by the beast. She didn't think it was that smart, but better safe than sorry.
When it saw her coming, its eyes widened in rage, wishing to regain control over itself and mangle her. She slit its throat easily and extracted the dim core with a bit of groping in vines that strangely imitated flesh.
She didn't put her kill up for games again, she knew how the last one ended. "I killed it," she said evenly. "I take this one."
Ronan nodded. It didn't matter who absorbed what anymore. One extra core wasn't fixing fatigue.
Then turned to continue moving to the middle of nowhere. Then it streaked through the air. It hit Khalifa in the back before she even heard the whistling sound.
Her gasped alerted Ronan as quickly as it should have.
More arrows followed.
He formed the ink staff before the ink had pooled out of his hands completely. As if gained defined shape, it spun into a whirling blur before him.
It deflected two arrows, shattering them into pieces. But one slipped through, embedding itself into his side.
He grunted and staggered, but he didn't fall. He knew how deadly falling was when his enemy had done so already. Two entrants stepped out from the tree line, exhibiting faint synchrony by their stance alone. In their hands were two bows made of common forest materials. The wood had been polished with a different resin, aimed at creating a professional outlook.
They fired again. But Ronan was already moving before the arrows knocked off their bows. The arrows missed by inches, grazing him just as close as body fluids.
Khalifa's gritted and surged the environment with distortion. It slowed everyone's movement down, fractionally, but enough to send a scowl to the faces of her attackers.
It didn't seem to help anyone, except for the fact that Ronan knew when she would release them from its grasp. Five seconds, she had said, was the amount of time she could comfortably drag motion for when in uncomfortable situations.
As the distortion relinquished hold of matter, Ronan hurled his staff, reshaping into a spear midair.
He slimmed the bulkiness too, allowing it to streak forward a lot faster. But before it hit, two more figures emerged. One jumped forward, displacing the raw momentum of the spear by clashing against the side with his blade. The second one simply caught it and tossed it aside.
The ambush was larger than expected. Soon more people walked out from the brush and they now numbered seven.
Ronan snarled and pumped the most of his scrappy energy into his hands, forming seven spears, one for each of the crowd. He launched them in rapid succession, their booms sounding like beating of drums.
Among them, a man stepped forward calmly and clasped his hands. A transparent barrier shimmered into existence, unfolding outwards, looking as flawless as pressed glass.
The spears struck and shattered against it. The impact was jarring. The boom tore outwards, parting mist and forcing the ground rippled under the force.
Strangely, Ronan didn't flinch, he smiled. "If we keep escalating, our party will soon have more guests."
He continued. "None of us will survive." It was mutually assured destruction.
For a heartbeat, the group grew grim. Then one of them laughed. "We've already cleared territory, or we wouldn't be here otherwise," he looked vicious and leaned forward. "We also wouldn't have let that predator as bait if we deemed here unfit to fight."
The realisation hit. No matter how careful and clever they thought they were, they were still naive. Everything had been chosen carefully, so as to avoid disturbances.
The attacked resumed shortly after. Ronan and Khalifa fought back desperately, using their arsenal as efficiently as they could, but with restraint too. Their energy pocket was not big enough to spend out of it on impulse.
A blade caught Khalifa's thigh before her distortion spread that far.
A heavy strike pounded Ronan's chest just as he threw his spear.
They hit the ground almost simultaneously. The wind had been knocked out of them both, and regaining it then was too much to ask.
Bootsteps approached.
A bowstring creaked.
Then a groan, low and oddly familiar, sounded through the mist. Immediately after a body streaked through the treeline with bone-rattling force. The attackers held their next steps to look.
Khalifa lifted her head, momentarily overcoming the stars brimming behind her vision.
Recognition struck immediately.
"Pluto–!"
He didn't respond. He was already moving.