Huff, Huff, Huff, Huff!

Flame charged forward with the goofiest smile on his face, Rumble rolling up right beside him in a large boulder before bursting out of it, breaking out into a run of his own as he emerged from the cloud of dust.

“Tell us next time you run off like that! Warrior was meditating!”

“Was he using that technique Navy taught us at the camp?”

“Yes!” Rumble said exasperatedly.

“Sounds dumb,” Flame chuckled.

“...” Rumble looks at Flame for a minute, completely dumbfounded by his leader. He looked like he was about to say something, but stopped himself.

“What?? Got a problem?” Flame taunted, leaning in towards the boy as they ran side-by-side.

Quickly, nearly lost in the breeze, he muttered “You’re stupid.”

“Huh?? I can’t hear you?” Flame goaded, leaning into Rumble and putting his hand to his ear, exaggeratedly leaning in to tease him.

Rumble stumbled, incredibly ill-at-ease with speaking shit as he saw it, at first refusing to say anything but then finally growing at least half a ball.

“You…You’re stupid…” He said, trailing off. His mouth flattened to a line, pulling back in an ashamed frown.

Flame laughed as his friend shot back at him. Finally! The “Yes boss,” and “Whatever you say boss,” should only be reserved for those who haven't proven themselves. Flame needed some fire in his life!

However, he couldn’t let this go to Rumble’s head either. As the leader, it was his duty of course. “8/10,” Flame said super seriously, smirking all the while.

“Rude,” Rumble muttered back, but he was sweatin’ the banter far less, so it worked exactly as Flame wanted it to.

Warrior ran up beside them, panting as she hit the gas to catch up. “Where are we going boss?”

“Toward the minotaur, I felt his fire.”

“Felt… his fire?” She asked.

So he was right… This was something exclusive to him. He’d never done this before, this strange feeling-something-without-his-eyes. But, ever since Navy brought up that ‘Three Dee Map thing,’ Flame had been playing around a bit with his magic, to see if it could be used more on the inside.

After all, the blasts he made on the outside were pretty awesome if he did say so. What could he do if he experimented? And like everything, he had picked up on it pretty quickly.

He wasn’t sure how helpful it would be later, but he seemed to be able to feel large amounts of heat, and he could do so from a pretty far distance too. It was a hunch to be sure. For all he knew, he could’ve been running towards the camp itself and not their mentor.

But Flame assumed that the camp would’ve probably had a lot more fire than a blip, which made sense if there were a ton of strong adults at the camp.

So he ignored the pulling towards the constant flames he felt a long ways away, and instead focused on this. If the giant goat had moved after seeing him approach he was going to be blisteringly mad.

The teammates Flame, Rumble, and Warrior talked loudly as they sprinted, not really soaking up the fact that this was a dangerous forest, this foolish conclusion arising all because they hadn’t really seen anything dangerous.

So far, they had only seen the training ground, and Flame was the type to need to see it first-hand, otherwise he would just brush it off. After all, only weaklings were scared of things they couldn’t see.

And so the forest made sure to give him hands-on experience.

This “live demonstration” made a heavy thump as it landed, long spider legs sticking out oddly from its back, shining dangerously in the dark forest. It opened its mouth to reveal teeth that shined a similar black as its odd, extra legs.

Flame smiled deviously when he eyed the creature’s extra-flammable coat, his eyes flaring open with an arsonist’s joy and warrior’s bloodlust.

A spider-headed rabbit had lumbered into their path.

Its body was large, far larger than the boar’s. Flame’s… flame, alit in his hand and he dramatically leaned forward in his pitchers stance. He giggled to himself, as his long ears perked up behind him to hear his teammates begin their preparations as well…

‘Let’s go,’ he thought delightedly.

The forest glowed around the makeshift arena as the imps stared down the chittering beast.

They stood and watched the creature vibrate quietly, its back legs and implements glowing with mana with each successive stridulation. Mainly the tips itself of the being.

Rumble started crafting. His tail plugged itself into the ground. A large ball much larger than the tailed imp revealing itself. Rumble struggled under the weight as he hefted the object slightly above his own torso

Shake Shake Shake,

The boy shook the boulder back and forth, and slowly, the condensed ball looked like it was being punched. It compressed, sharpened, and lost its undesirable pieces.

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The large pieces of dirt fell away like sand sculpted off like a sand castle, and Flame watched Rumble build his construct.

The creature shrieked an ear piercing screech, not taking the time to let the boy continue whatever the boy was plotting. it needed far less time than Rumble did, its lack of constructs making that very apparent.

Rumble needed time.

“Guys, me and Warrior will distract the beast since we’re the strongest guys here.”

“I’m not a guy!” Warrior said for the fifth time today.

Flame didn’t think that she was actually the second strongest, but liked the running joke of calling her a guy, because damn did she fit the part.

She had the longest hair so far in the cradle, It made you automatically believe it was from the will of a blessing. Her eyes were sharp to a point, and her size was right under Flame’s.

Her hair was such an impressive display of fitness that it had to be tied into a long warrior’s tail with the help of Rumble’s earth magic woven into a hair tie. She talked with a level of bass that made any boy jealous.

None of them currently had muscles, but she was almost there. Her body was stocky, large, like a giant rectangle. Flame had beaten her in a fight first and had gotten her to join his entourage. His reasoning was not only because she was one of the most intimidating faces in the cradle,

But also because she did not betray that appearance.

As Flame ran up with yellow balls of fire dancing in his palms, she hefted up one of the practice javelins that she planned to use on the board. Flame took the attention of the rabbit and sidestepped to the right to give his soldier a clear line.

She threw her flaming javelin at the creature with a warrior’s force, only barely missing the beast, through no fault of her own.

The creature’s strange legs were used to incredible effect, breaking the ground with a spider web of cracks as it dodged up to the trees, its big body soaring with a surprising level of bounce.

“I can’t see him!” She yelled.

Flame looked around frantically for the beast. They lost vision. His group's eyes frantically looked around the dark forest and they heard it chittering.

The creature’s pseudo laughter enraged him, and he tossed a haphazard ball of fire at one of the tree’s. The chittering continued, unperturbed.

They heard *Boom, Thump, Boom, Thmp, Thump, Boom, Thump!* as the creature leaped from tree to tree. They saw its shadow streak over their heads, the sound of the creature's knife-like implements anchoring into tree after tree with ease.

Flame threw fireballs wherever he heard noise, accidentally pegging a few trees with balls of non-kinetic flame.

He tried to trust his instincts, see without his eyes, and trust his magic…

But the chittering just. Didn’t. Stop.

Flame huffed in and out as the laughing increased around his ears. How dare it laugh at him. How dare they play with him like he was food.

“Come out and fight you coward!” Flame yelled into the beyond, but suddenly, he stopped hearing anything. Had the scaredy cat ran–

The rabbit appeared in his peripherals and stabbed him in the side. He screamed as his body was raised high into the air.

“Flame!!!” Rumble screamed out in terror. Flame screamed in agony as the creature’s limb threw him to the side, unplugging the grievous wound. Blood poured out of his side as he laid on the ground like a discarded toy. His body crumpled against one of the burning blue trees.

“D-Damn…” He choked out.

Rumble spun on his axis and shot his construct at the beast. Its giant figure glowed a bright tawny. Hoisted over his shoulders, the earth flew in the shape of a giant pickaxe blade.

Rumble’s tail flicked and he completely missed the giant rabbit, shooting way too far to the left. It spun in the air as he threw it into the beyond, disappearing into the woods.

Fire climbed down the tree as Flame struggled to get up from his wounds. His back hurt and any movement sent shocks of pain down his body.

He heard the crackle of the now-burning forest as he tried to hold his wound. “Stupid cheapshot…” he mumbled as his vision got blurry.

The creature charged his companions, and Warrior brought up another javelin like a shield. She waved the flaming stick in front of the beast, panically waving it around in the hopes that it would act as some kind of deterrent.

The rabbit quickly grew tired of the flames, and swiped a large spider claw down onto the wood.

SNAP!

Wood broke off into small pieces. Warrior looked shocked, and then even more so as she struggled with the blade in her stomach. ‘What the hell were these teachers thinking…’ Flame thought as he slowly was fading.

…

…

The shadow boy sat on the blonde boy’s shoulders and repeatedly smacked the boy on the head. “Faster, faster, faster,” he demanded with low enthusiasm, even though it felt quite good to be carried.

The blonde boy cursed. Shadow had refused to move when Flame’s group had started taking off. He was in less of a hurry than all these poor louts, and nobody with a bowl cut was going to tell him to go anywhere.

After being yelled at by the boy for about two minutes, the embarrassingly-styled imp’s face beet red, Shadow was honestly surprised. The kid either truly couldn’t sense when he was in a different league, or he was the most fearless person in this camp.

He remembered the boy's puffy face…

‘Nah,’ he chuckled internally, ‘he was number one among the fearless.’

One of the smaller boys on the team had given the idea that they just carry Shadow, and after much deliberation, they eventually just gave in.

Which is how he was riding on his new horse.

He swirled darkness around his party. Ichor and black dripped from the trees around them as Shadow pointed in the direction of Flame’s party who was still a decent distance away.

Wait, why’d they stop?

He grabbed the poorly done bowl-cut in a ‘heel’ motion, “Hey! Stop.”

The entire group stopped and looked around. They truly could not see through Shadow's magic at night and looked around in the void. “What’s going on?” That little boy asked.

Shadow said nothing, not feeling like enlightening them as he watched Flame’s group being attacked by a giant beast of a creature. Long spider legs coming out of the oversized rabbit’s back pierced a boy in the stomach as it held them up.

…

‘Not any of my business.’ The shadow boy thought. He pointed his team to go around the battle, not telling them about the people being slaughtered.

This was none of his business.

He barely even wanted to do this; he wasn't getting involved in whatever was happening there.

He could win if he just chased the direction that Flame ran in, then he could finally rest…

Rhodney’s word’s of wanting to help people flashed in his mind, but he gave them no thought. ‘Why help when you could get punished for doing so? His life was more important.’

Black ichor and fog clouded around their team as they headed around the battle. He kept his hands firmly on the boy’s blond bowl cut. “Stop pulling!” The very same bowl cut yelled.

“Faster, faster, faster,” Shadow droned out.