The moment that Turi dropped into the shop, the huge housecat was upon him. Turi flapped his wings, and dodged the cat’s swipes by several feet. Turi was already feeling pretty cramped in here, but he hoped that he could kill the cat through sheer brute force.

Turi shot forward and drilled his beak into the cat’s nose before it could even react, and, in an incredible display of agility that was, admittedly, mostly because he bent the wind to his will, flew backwards along its back, raking his razor-sharp and remarkably articulated talons across its back, and propelling himself away with a flap of his wings just as the cat’s jaws snapped closed where he had been a moment prior.

The cat lunged after him, but it was stopped by a stone spike that pierced into its hind leg. Turi had made several of them before the fight had even started, and, as the cat looked at its hind leg in confusion, Turi shot forward once more, raking his talons across its face, only narrowly missing its eyes due to its quick reaction to its mistake.

Turi did the same thing as last time, coasting backwards using the wind and raking his claws across its back. This time, he didn’t even need to propel himself backwards, because the cat was more concerned with dislodging the stone spike from its leg.

He glanced at the human, and was distinctly unhappy to see that it was simply standing there, shocked. It could have fled or assisted him, and everything would have been fine.

Turi refocused on the battle. The cat had managed to dislodge the stone spike, but it had left a pretty deep wound that would take ages for it to heal. The slight limp didn’t escape his gaze.

Speaking of injuries, there was a deep, bloody wound in its forehead, and the marks of his talons covered its face and back, although those were rapidly closing. The huge housecat’s fluffy fur was matted with blood, and he could tell that the cat was much more cautious of him now.

If he weren’t trapped in a store and he had more room to maneuver, this fight would have been easy, but presently, Turi was actually getting worried for his life. At any moment, the cat could get a hold of him with one single lunge, and it would all be over for him then.

The two other stone spikes that he had crafted before the battle shot forward. One was aimed at the cat’s throat and the other at its flank. The cat swatted the one aimed at its throat away, and twisted its body, resulting in the spike only skimming it. Turi used this brief distraction to shove the human towards the small hole he had crawled through using the air, and sat on the counter as he waited for the cat to make its move.

The cat didn’t move an inch, keeping its back to the wall so that Turi couldn’t maneuver around it. Turi hoped that it would remain that way, but based on the urgency in its body language as it glanced at the dazed human as he ever so slowly fled, it was hungry.

What Turi didn’t know was that humans were a very appetizing meal for most monsters; not because they tasted good, because they definitely didn’t, but because they were oftentimes very weak in comparison to a beast of their same level. At least, for now; they were a race that was very reliant on tools and teamwork.

The cat padded forward, and Turi’s eyes flared. The roof directly above it caved in on the cat, and the concrete of the roof molded to its form. The cat struggled against it, but the stone fought back, just barely keeping its form bound. Turi took a brief moment to look back, and was glad to see that the human had hastened his getaway. The human wasn’t in the shop, and Turi could hear his heavy breathing and rapid footsteps as he fled.

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Turi released his hold over the concrete roof that bound the cat and quickly taking to the air, leaving through one of the various holes in the roof.

Turi quickly pursued the human, and caught up with him with ease. He flew a few yards above the human’s head, much to its distress, but Turi was too preoccupied to care. He had expended a lot of essence, especially with that last move. Turi had known that it was stupid, but he was in a pinch and hadn’t expected it to drain half of the essence in his core all on its own.

His Tome manifested in front of him, and it flipped to the fourth page. He looked at the map and got a grasp of how to get the human back to his camp as quickly as possible, and have it vouch for his goodness.

***

Jeremiah felt like his heart was about to explode. Sweat poured from his body like a river, and he was breathing so heavily that he was pretty sure monsters from three blocks away could hear him. The crow was perched on a traffic light at the end of the street, and it looked to be staring off into nothing.

He could hardly believe what had happened. The crow had saved his life, but he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. It might have just been competing with the huge housecat to eat him.

Regardless, it wasn’t like Jeremiah could turn around and go down a different street. He continued forward, his chest heaving as he climbed over rubble. The crow suddenly looked back at him, and sighed. Jeremiah had seen it do that a few times now.

The crow’s golden irises glowed brighter, and the rubble in front of him flattened, providing him a clear pathway. Jeremiah didn’t- almost couldn’t- think, and just continued forward.

Jeremiah stumbled and fell to the ground, scraping his hands and knees. After a few seconds of coughing so badly that he half expected to hack his lungs up, Jeremiah pushed himself up and trudged forward.

He got to the end of the street and continued forward, but the wind pushed him sideways. All of Jeremiah’s constructs had fallen apart during his fight with the housecat, and so he simply trusted the crow. It wasn’t like there was anything else he could do.

As he trudged forward, he reached into his bag and bit into an essence core. It had belonged to the tentacle beetle, and was supposed to go to Leo, but he needed to survive. He wanted to slap himself for not thinking of it sooner, but there was nothing he could do about it.

A holographic blue panel appeared in front of him, and he chose to ascend his strength. A surge of power ran through him, and his pace practically doubled. He wasn’t in peak condition, of course, but he didn’t feel like he was on the verge of death anymore.

‘Why did I stop to make a tiger? I could’ve made a… something smaller, but equally as loud and attention-grabbing. Why is this crow helping me? Why didn’t I just stick with the rest of the group?’

Jeremiah kept running, and running, and running. Every once in a while, the crow would help him out, and sometimes, it would disappear for a short period, and return looking a bit more ragged.

Jeremiah finally, finally, arrived within a block of their camp, and saw Aaron standing atop the roof of a two-story building. Aaron said something, but he couldn’t hear. Every muscle in his body felt like it was going to break at any moment, and the blood rushing through his ears sounded like a tsunami. The only thing keeping him on his feet was adrenaline and fear.

***

Turi had fought off several beasts to protect the pathetic human, and he was feeling the strain. He hadn’t been forced to use a drop of essence, and his essence core was roughly a quarter of the way full, though.

When the human he was escorting arrived within a block of his camp, Turi saw a human on a roof rush to bring him inside. The human he had escorted looked like it was on the verge of death, so he didn’t bother establishing communications just yet. It wouldn’t be able to vouch for him.

It had been midday when all of this started, and the sun was setting now. He had been protecting the human for half the day, and Turi felt like he was going to fall apart if he didn’t get some rest. The flock’s meeting area was too far away, though, so Turi simply found the tallest building there was and landed on its roof.

Turi’s eyes flashed with power, and a cocoon of stone wrapped around him, and Turi fell unconscious.