My right leg screamed in pain as the thorns cut through my pants and bit into my leg. It blinded me to the fact that I was falling until my face slammed into the cobbled ground below.

I got lifted off the ground, hanging upside down by the leg. The vine whipped my body to the side, about to slam me into the buildings wall when something grabbed my shoulders from behind and stopped me. I turned, expecting to see Heidi, but instead saw an ethereal golden-yellow hand holding onto me. It looked like it made from wrapped cloth like you would see on a boxer, all the way from the fingers to the wrist where it then ended.

A second pair of hands shot from where Heidi was standing and ripped the vine apart. The hands holding my shoulders gently put me on the ground, then joined the hands in ripping up the plants that had begun to sprout up from the cracks in the cobble stone.

Heidi had charged the group of four, two more pairs of hands joining her. On her real arms were a pair of gauntlets that reminded me of the Forged Orders armor, except they were all different shades of gold rather than steel, silver and bronze.

My leg and face still pulsed with pain, but I forced it down.

This was combat, I needed to think. What were the conditions for victory and defeat?

Defeat. Death first. Maimed permanently second. Loss of journal third.

Victory. Escape with minimal damage to our bodies first. Journal does not fall in enemies hands second. Defeat the foes third?

I didn’t know how effective I would be for combat, but I did know of a way to meet one of my conditions for victory.

—

The moment Heidi saw Monty get yanked off his feet she activated the Wit she had been preparing.

On her arms a pair of gauntlets appeared. Outside of the protective aspect of the armor the gauntlets themselves did nothing, but when Heidi pushed her power through them Helping Hands appeared.

Helping Hands worked exactly as they said. Hands would appear around Heidi and they would help with any situation. However Heidi herself had absolutely no control over them.

Instead they worked independently from her consciousness and desires. They prioritized the safety of innocents first, allies second, Heidi third and attacking enemies last. There were other things they could do, but in this situation that was how they would primarily function. Even if they could stop a blade from plunging into Heidi’s chest, they would first prioritize a random citizen and get them to safety.

This was the first Wit she had crafted in her Dreamscape, of course the first time she had made it the ability had been weak and inefficient. She had to control the hands herself, they were not strong or durable, and they took up too much energy to keep up.

The Cheshire family had admitted to wanting to figure out their abilities, but honestly Heidi didn’t care a huge amount if they did find out about hers. Yes they were assholes that were violently assaulting children to try and pry information out of them, but Heidi’s powers were not meant to be a secret never shown.

That didn’t mean she was going to show all her cards here though. She would like some insurance though. The armor? No. The boots? Not necessary. The beacon? Yes. That could be useful should she need it.

She charged the group of four Cheshire Dreamers, two pairs out of four Helping Hands joining her. Good, that meant Monty was not in significant danger at the moment.

Her body glowed brighter as she focused on The Hero’s Calling Room in her Dreamscape. Floating above her head a miniature sun appeared. It was only the size of her thumb for now, and hopefully she wouldn’t need to use it.

She was only feet away from the Cheshire kids now. All four glowed with green Intent, grass beginning to grow beneath their feet. The boy with close cropped hair raised his arm, his entire body morphing to look like a humanoid tree. The older girl next to him began to have thorny vines flow out of her clothing. The second boy threw a handful of seeds at her and the last girl placed a hand on the two leading combatants their aura of Intent growing in size and power.

Even if she couldn’t control the Helping Hands, that didn’t mean she couldn’t use them. The pair of hands on her left swatted the seeds away from her, so she jumped to the right.

Her feet landed on a hand each and she used them as a platform to jump on the alleyway wall, which she then kicked off of to land just behind the girl in the back.

Her armored fist slammed into the side of the girls head, throwing her to the ground. Vines from the second girl and a wild punch from the younger boy was easily dodged.

Heidi wanted to be a hero, someone that others could rely on. She wanted for them to feel hope when they saw her, but she had grown up fighting dirty. A habit she was still trying and failing to break completely.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

She slammed the heel of her platform shoes down on the girls gut, who choked back a cough. In the corner of her vision she saw the two pairs of Helping Hands shoot towards Monty, which meant he was in danger. She channeled a bit more power into her gauntlets and another pair of Helping Hands appeared. She couldn’t spawn an infinite amount of Helping Hands so she would need to check up on him in a moment.

The thorn girl was sending a wall of vines towards her. So Heidi slightly moved her foot and kicked the downed girl into the oncoming tide.

Then she pulled back her fist, Intent pouring into her arm, and punched the younger boy in the jaw. He crumpled to the ground. Most of the time a knocked out person would only really be unconscious for a few moments, anything longer and that meant serious injury.

That didn’t mean that when he was awake he would be ready to go again though.

Heidi rolled away from the onslaught of vines, and felt the grass that had grown due to the Cheshire Dreamers’ Intent grasp at her, trying to slow her down. She sent a quick punch to the ground, using Intent Manipulation to create a pulse of power that ripped up grass and cracked cobble stone.

With her other hand she grabbed the unconscious boys ankle, and wielding his body like a club tried to smash thorn girl in the head.

She took a step back, but quickly used her vines to stop the boy from slamming head first into the ground. The other girl was on her knees gasping, and Heidi kicked her in the side.

Glancing up Heidi saw the Helping Hands lifting Monty away from the tree boy who had abandoned the fight with her to go after the journal. Monty was… eating paper. In his hands he held the journal he had spent all day writing in and was tearing out pieces of paper and stuffing them into his mouth.

That was smart, still silly looking, but smart.

Two pairs of Helping Hands were grabbing Monty and lifting him up, two more were yanking back the tree boy, and the final pair were covering tree boy’s face to blind him. Fighting enemies might have been the lowest priority for Helping Hands, but if it meant brining one of her allies to safety they would.

Tree boy’s arm grew in length and got a hold of Monty’s leg.

Instantly Heidi pulled energy from The Hero’s Calling. It had grown a bit, even though the fight hadn’t been going on for more than ten seconds.

She focused the energy from the sun above into her gauntlets. The hands already in existence glowed brighter with power and three more pairs appeared, two of which went to go and help Monty and the last pulled Heidi away from the thorn girl’s attack.

Good, although situations could quickly spiral out of control, Heidi liked to use Helping Hands as a measurement of where she was needed.

Heidi yanked on the boy’s ankle, which opened a dozen wounds on his body from where thorns were hugging him. He screamed as he was brought back to consciousness.

That froze the girl with the vines, and Heidi used the moment of shock to dash in and punch her in the sternum. The power in the punch would have cracked stone, but here it was only enough to bring the girl to her knees. Heidi grabbed her by the face and slammed the back of her head into the ground.

Then she stood, threw the now conscious boy onto the younger girl who was trying to stand again, and ran towards Monty. A scream from in front of her made her gut drop, but saw it wasn’t Monty who had been injured.

Monty had pulled a hammer and knife out of nowhere and had stabbed the boy in the arm, following with a hammer swing on the butt of the weapon to drive it deeper in. Tree boy let go of Monty, who rose up higher due to Helping Hands and threw his hammer in the tree boys face when he tried to take a swipe at Monty.

Monty then grabbed the side of one of those new air conditioning unit and white Intent flowed through the machine. He yanked it and somehow easily disconnected it from its bindings. Then he slammed the box onto the tree guys head a few times. After dropping the air conditioning unit he then grabbed his journal from his armpit and began to eat pages once again.

“It’s good Monty, I’m here now,” Heidi yelled.

She was behind the tree guy now, and grabbed him by one of his sprouting branches. Pulling with her back she then kicked the feet out from under the boy and brought him to the ground. Obviously the tree body would make him more durable, so she let loose a little bit and started to rain ground shaking punches on him.

Once she thought the boy would be down for a while she grabbed Monty and pulled him back out of the alley. They had to pass the three other Cheshire kids, but they were all decidedly not in the mood for a scuffle anymore.

On the street a lot of people had run away due to the noises coming from the alley, but there were still a few curious pedestrians.

“Four children of the Cheshire Dreamer family are injured and in that alley. I recommend staying away and letting the authorities handle the situation.”

That drove the onlookers away. Dreamers alone were scary stuff, but a powerful Dreamer family was these peoples worst nightmares.

“Let’s return to the school,” Heidi said to Monty.

The odd boy was staring at the ones they had left in the alley.

“How is he able to turn his skin to bark like that? Is it due solely to his bloodline or did he cultivate his Dreamscape to do that? Surely its not permanent, or maybe its like an on and off switch and he has to deliberately make the effects go away.”

His fingers clenched around his journal, that was now several pages lighter.

“Monty.”

“Huh? Oh, sorry. You are a good fighter. I was not able to see all of what you did, but what I did see was impressive. When you fight do you plan out your moves or do you just rely on instincts?”

“Um, I uh- I usually plan my first move, but after that most combat is too unpredictable to plan, at least for me it is.”

“I see, thank you,” he looked down at his journal. “I ate those pages for nothing, I should vomit them up. It won’t save the pages I think, but it can’t be healthy to eat that much paper and ink.”

“I’m sorry about your notebook,” she said.

Almost every time Heidi saw Monty he was writing in his notebook, he must care deeply about it.

“Its not a huge issue, I have it all memorized, but now I need a new journal. Or maybe I should take Professor Pure’s advice and stop using one for my…”

He stopped, looked to his notebook again, looked to Heidi and then grimaced.

“I was wrong.”

“What?”

“I am not smart.”