The day is quiet and peaceful, the forest tranquil and serene. Little bunnies scurry around the grassy floor, and cute little squirrels crawl up and down the trees, collecting their nuts. Butterflies do their little butterfly things, and bees go from flower to flower, pollinating as they go.

  That is, until a 6ft tall, perfect killing machine comes barreling down through the glade, its wickedly-sharp taloned feet mulching the bees’ flowers as it passes by and sending the bunnies sprinting down rabbit holes that don’t lead to another world. The accompanying screams that travel with the murder machine sends the squirrels rushing up the trees, and the butterflies… Just kind of chill, really.

  Emily would easily place this on the top of her “worst rides she’s ever taken” list, right above the time she fell off of Winny and landed in manure. And it’s no contest. Sure, the manure stunk to high heavens. But at least the manure didn’t have razor sharp claws digging into her ribcage!

  Emily tries to pull apart Blue’s talons again and get him to unhand her before he accidentally eviscerates something important, but the ostrich has her in a death grip. Quite literally, if she doesn’t find a way to get out of this before Blue snaps out of it and realizes he’s holding a delectable snack.

  For such tiny arms, they have a lot of grip strength.

  Blue hops over a fallen log, and the rope still attached around his neck catches on an upright branch, pulling taut for a moment and startling the ostrich all over again. It lets out a screech and grips Emily even tighter, squeezing the life out of her and cutting off her breath before putting on even more speed than before, his legs a blur underneath him.

  Great. So he won’t let go. Should she blast him?

  Priming her mana, she looks up at Blue, considering the consequences that would come about from just blasting him in the face. Vivid images of his scythe-like talons being forcefully ripped out of her flesh flashes in her mind, and she decides she prefers keeping her insides on the inside, thank you very much.

  Can she cut his nails?

  Reaching for her side, she unsheathes her trusty dagger, pressing it against one of Blue’s talons and sawing it back and forth and back and forth. A small little indent starts to form, and the blade finally bites, giving Emily just the tiniest bit of hope that this might just –

  Blue steps hard onto a rock, sending a jolt up his body and into Emily just as she was adjusting her grip and loosening it just a bit more than she was planning. She watches in shock and dismay as her trusty tool falls to the forest floor, the sound of it landing not even reaching her ears in time before it disappears into the distance.

  Okay. Crap. So much for that.

  Emily turns away from her lost dagger and thinks harder, cataloguing all of her equipment and every action she could take with them. Could she do something with the clothes? Maybe cover Blue’s eyes and hope it stops him? No, that’d probably just cause them to crash painfully into a tree, potentially gutting Emily like a fish on Blue’s claws. Maybe she could use Sir Barrion’s blade? It’s strapped to her side, within easy reach… But no, it’s more unwieldy than the dagger was, and she’s not risking dropping the beautifully etched blade onto the forest floor…

  Maybe she could –

  “Monster! Approaching the main gate!”

  Emily feels her heart sink into her stomach.

  Oh, fuck.

  What direction was Blue running in?

  Turning her head to face forwards for the first time, Emily sees that they are swiftly traveling towards her worst nightmare:

  The goddamn Wrendale FOB.

  “Archers! Ready!”

  And they’re not fucking around.

  Emily watches in dismay as a row of archers swiftly ready themselves on the ramparts, nocking their bows and glaring towards the monstrous pair swiftly running down their gates.

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  “Aim!”

  The archers pull back their bows and take aim, sighting down the arrows towards their next victim.

  Unless Emily can stop them.

  Taking a deep breath, Emily prepares her mana, hoping that this will work. Turning herself as far forwards as she can while not tearing herself apart, she holds out her hand as it begins to glow.

  “Waaaaait!”

  She screams as loudly as she can, as her hand glows brighter and brighter, hoping that they can hear her.

  “Don’t shooooooot!”

  A few particularly perceptive people notice her call, their ears perking up in surprise and their bows slightly lowering as they take a second look at the monster barreling towards them and spotting the passenger currently held tightly within its grippers.

  Unfortunately, though, they’re too late to relay what they heard and saw to those around them. And even if they did, it wouldn’t change anything right now.

  A monster is running straight for their main gate, after all. It needs to be put down.

  “Loose!”

  A flock of arrows twang into the sky, swiftly arching up before falling in a deadly rain towards Emily and Blue.

  “Bastaaards!”

  Emily acts swiftly as she screams insults at the men on the wall, sweeping her hand out and letting out the largest pillar of air that she can. A full fifth of her mana disappears, as the air billows out from her trailing hand, expanding with a cacophonious “whoomph!” as it pushes out with speed and intercepts the arrows currently falling swiftly towards them, pushing most of them off target and letting them harmlessly pierce the earth around them.

  The men pause at the sight of their arrows getting turned away with ease, the clear magical nature of it causing a stir within their ranks. Did that monster just use magic? Is that even possible? What the hell is wrong with this forest?!

  Luckily for Emily, those particularly perceptive people finally have the opportunity to relay what they saw and heard.

  “Captain! That’s a mage!”

  The captain, a burly man as wide as he’s tall and with a thick mustache growing bushily on his face, whirs on the archer, an accusatory eyebrow raised at the man who dared to speak out of turn while under attack by a monster.

  “That’s a what, now? Are you mad?! That’s a monster!”

  He turns back to the archers, cupping a hand to his mouth as he does so, his hand on his hip as he bellows out:

  “Ready!”

  The other archers on the wall nock their arrows, their faces grim and set, ready to take down the dire threat that’s approaching.

  Until another perceptive person speaks up, backing up the first.

  “It’s got her held in its claws! They have a mage, sir! One of ours!”

  At that very moment, Emily decides that she needs to try again. Her eyes can pick up a lot of people with pointy, shiny swords drawn that she’d rather not meet with the business end of, thank you very much.

  Suddenly remembering Sir Barrion, and the way he bowed to her… Emily comes up with an idea.

  With another deep breath, she cups her hands to her mouth, screaming as loudly as she can:

  “I’m a goddamn archmage, stand doooown! Don’t shooooooot!”

  And this time, it rings loudly and clearly to the captain, whose eyebrows raise in surprise and shock.

  And a tiny amount of fear, that grows and grows as he realizes that he just ordered his men to shoot at a goddamn archmage.

  He furiously spins to face the rest of his men, his hand held up to halt them and sweat dripping down his brow in panic. His barrel chest rises as he inhales, his many years as a commander giving him the necessary pipes to do what’s needed to try and salvage this situation:

  Shout loud enough for the Archmage to hopefully hear.

  “Stop! You goddamn idiots! Stop shooting!”

  And hear him she did, as well as everyone else within a mile’s radius, his shout echoing out far and wide as only a Commander’s shout could. He swiftly points towards the men in front of the gate, as he watches the monster carrying the archmage come closer and closer.

  “Stand down and move, Archmage inbound!”

  The men with swords swiftly put away their swords, some of them smoothly stepping aside while others are forced to dive out of the way of the fluffy creature currently sprinting past them in single-minded determination to get away and through those welcoming, open gates.

  Emily lets out a terrified scream, as Blue makes it past the threshold, and enters the enemy army’s camp at a dead sprint.