The g’athu began its horrible scream and Amber saw heads exploding. A pressure began squeezing her mind and she started to freak out. The next thing she knew, she was outside the building, falling to the ground. It wasn’t a long fall, but it was enough to snap her out of it. She was in her bear form. She couldn’t think well as a bear, so she turned into a demon and then into her human form and hid from all senses.

Amber looked around. It was late night in Hawaii, but here and there she saw a dead person with an exploded head. That made her remember the guy she accidentally killed. She was racked with guilt again. She wished she had only transformed to her demon form. Guilt was dulled in that form.

Amber heard Lilly yelling and focused on that. She went around and entered through the main door of the building. Lilly’s screams were coming from the stairwell. She headed towards it and as she arrived Hubaba banged through the stairwell door with Lilly in his arms. The giant demon had three large gashes on his shoulder and chest.

Lilly was screaming for her husband. Amber’s first thought was that John was doing something stupid and only thinking of himself. Then she wondered if he was dead and her heart sank. She was going to follow Hubaba, or at least say something, but had to check. She entered the stairwell and went back towards the auditorium stage.

Amber saw big holes in the walls she assumed was her doing. She entered the auditorium through the hole next to the closed door leading to the stage. Everyone was dead. Everyone. Blood and brains and skull were splattered everywhere. It was the grossest thing she had ever seen. She had to pause and repress a gag.

The g’athu was gone and John stood near a swirling circle of darkness, and she was relieved to see him alive. Is that a portal?

Holding back her initial instinct to call out to John, Amber walked nearer to see what he was doing. She was very surprised to see a tortured look on his face. His eyes, wide with fright, darted around nervously.

The thing Amber hated the most about John was that he was always so confident and sure of himself when he was always wrong. He only thought about two things - himself and battle. He always thought he was right to charge off on a suicide mission trying to get himself and everyone else killed.

John was never scared.

Amber hated fighting. She hated conflict. If she had to do it, she wanted it to be done smartly. She wanted everything to be planned and discussed and thought about. She wanted it to be coordinated with as many people as possible. She wanted to go into it feeling like she’d be okay. Like how the Ocean’s Eleven guys planned out robberies.

John always wanted to rush in like a maniac and just hope for the best. He was an idiot. And a Jerk.

Looking at John’s tortured face and fearful look shocked Amber. She would’ve bet a million dollars the man never thought about anything. And that he certainly didn’t fear anything.

Shortly after, a scowl went on John’s face, his brows furrowed, and he began muttering to himself. Amber couldn’t make out much, but she heard the words coward and low and base and shame.

He’s hyping himself up, Amber thought. Is this idiot really gonna enter the portal? If it goes to one of the g’athu bases, there’ll be Silvers and a Gold. He’ll die. He’ll definitely die. One hundred percent. No cap. He has no chance at all.

Then John’s eyes filled with tears. He looked so sad and pathetic Amber couldn’t stop herself from crying too. It didn’t last long before his brows furrowed again and he continued to stare at the portal.

John said his first clear words, and he said them loudly. “I am born for war.”

Just as Amber was going to tell John not to be an idiot he yelled like a maniac and jumped through the portal. Instead of being angry at him, she was instead filled with a deep sadness.

I’ll hafta trust someone else with my true name to help protect me, Amber thought. Hubaba didn’t have enough [Mental Fortification]. She wasn’t sure about Lilly. She didn’t think she could fully trust Lilly anyway.

What’s wrong with me? My friend is gonna die and I’m thinking about this? He’s a jerk, but he’s one of the only real friends I’ve ever had, and I really…no. Don’t think that. Don’t ever think that. There’s no hope. There’s never been hope. It is how it is. I knew the price. I agreed to the price.

A dread filled Amber. She began to breathe heavily and panic as she realized she was going to be dead soon along with everyone else. Along with the world. But after thinking it through, the panic and dread left and only an empty feeling remained. She knew the g’athu couldn’t be stopped. She thought knowing she was going to die would make her sadder. She almost felt relief knowing she wouldn’t have to live with the price of her decisions much longer. What do I hafta live for anyways, she asked herself.

She remembered back to outside of Reims in France. While everyone was setting up, Amber stood behind the front end of a vehicle, a little away from Petar Kostov and some of the soldiers, and unhid. It didn’t take long for the curse to kick in and cause some soldiers to turn around with angry looks on their faces, including Petar. They were all Woods, but Petar cleared all three of his cores, so he had some [Mental Fortification]. She ducked down and hid from all senses. The men looked away.

Amber had still hoped her curse wouldn’t work on higher ascended. Petar was a Wood. Maybe when he was Copper or Bronze her curse wouldn’t work on him. Or maybe it gets stronger as I ascend too, she thought. I’ll never find out now.

Everyone was certain Amber would be used as fuel to strengthen a soul eventually. She’d never have even plain old regular love, never mind true love. She’d never be with a man. She’d always have to hold it in. All she’d ever have was her imagination and dreams of what would never be. Playacting only in her own mind.

What made Amber so frustrated was she wanted so little. She didn’t want a rich man, or even a man that was all that attractive. She just wanted a good guy that really loved her and treated her super good and appreciated how lucky he was.

In her dream life, Amber would wear sexy but completely appropriate dresses and pretend she didn’t know how hot she was and act all ditzy and purposefully burn one of the sides she made for dinner. Her husband would laugh and smile and say, “Oh, you! Come here, gorgeous. Let me hold you. I’m the luckiest guy in the world and I’ll never forget it. Not for one second. Every day I’ll earn your love. Every single day. Heck, just wait and see what I have in store for you tonight, you naughty girl.”

Amber’s mouth would open in surprise and shock, and she’d slap her husband’s shoulder playfully and say, “Oh! I’m not! You’re the naughty one!” And then they’d both laugh, and when they ate dinner, her husband wouldn’t be able to keep his eyes off her. Just like John couldn’t when they lived in the Trial on Esau. And she’d be so happy and not miserable, and her decision to be beautiful would end up being great and wonderful and not a terrible mistake at all.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Amber didn’t ever dare dream about children. She knew that was way too much to ever hope for. And too hurtful to think about. As soon as she merged with the lizard as a frog, she stopped producing eggs in either form. Her bear, fox, and deer forms never entered heat, and she had never had a period as a human. She kind of hoped she didn’t shed that gross stuff as a demon.

Amber liked that she could finally show off the personality she had cultivated for so long. She wished it wasn’t pretend. But she was pretend. Everything about her was pretend. She tried to make it seem like she was impulsive, but she wasn’t. She couldn’t be.

Amber wondered why John had been annoying her so much lately. She remembered watching him fight the dark ones during the Tribulation. He was so thankful for the little help she gave as he fearlessly and selflessly fought everything, saving her from as much of it as he could. She remembered when she was sick, how he threw her high onto the banner he placed in the tree branches before he fought the demon cats. He faced them all himself. His first thought was keeping her safe.

John was a jerk, but Amber thought he was a thoughtful and kind jerk. He was a good friend. And handsome. At least when he has a beard. And eyebrows. Stop! What am I thinking? I can’t think this, she thought. He was married. To her first real girlfriend no less.

Amber knew she and everyone else would die by the g’athu sooner or later. Lilly was right. Except there was nowhere to run. Not for her. At the most she could wait and see the world and the society she loved so much burned to ashes, all the people that filled it murdered, and try to extend her life by a week or a day or an hour. Or…

Surprising herself, Amber jumped into the portal. Sometimes John’s right. Better to die trying. Better to die with a friend by your side than alone. Die trying to do what’s right. Just once, I wanna stop pretending.

The dark of the portal turned into a light-blue tunnel that sucked Amber quickly through it. She was deposited on her feet and nearly tripped over a dead g’athu near the exit. She made sure she was still hidden before looking around.

Amber was in an open area surrounded by a ton of metal buildings within an enclosure of large metal walls. The open sky above shimmered through some sort of blueish field. She could tell it was early morning wherever she was when it was just late night in Hawaii.

Without feeling each one to check their tier, all the g’athu looked the same to Amber. Some hovered and wore the same exact outfit as the g’athu in Hawaii, but most wore only robes and slithered around on the large tentacles their legs ended in, all the tentacles wriggling like snakes.

All the g’athu were rushing towards John, and John already had a bunch of them around him. His armor was already cut up badly, highlighting all his bloody wounds. He jumped and contorted himself in the air as he avoided the chain-things the geared-up g’athu lashed at him like glowing whip-claws.

John jumped again, diving over a blue ball of essence. While in the air he twisted around, his shield lighting up darkly as it blocked little laser beams that shot out of some sort of spider-leg things a geared-up g’athu wore on his back. Then, by the skin of his teeth, he slid right through three of the brown beams the robe wearing g'athu shot at him.

He fights like a god, thought Amber as she watched John in amazement. Many additional g’athu corpses littered the ground on the path to John, two wearing tech gear. She couldn’t peel her eyes from John battling. He jumped around like an acrobat, shrugging off damage, avoiding attacks, and lashing out with sword, shield, and ring.

He’s not even using manifestations. He’s calculating his moves so the other g’athu hafta be super careful with their laser beam spider-legs, the blue balls, and the brown beams the robe-wearers are shooting.

Amber was nearly as impressed with the coordination of the g’athu, but then she remembered it was all the same guy that thought exactly the same way and became less impressed. Two of them got their chain-claws caught together as John slid away again, and she almost laughed.

Amber had to force herself to stop watching John to sense what he was up against. None of the Bronze, Copper, or Wood were kitted out with tech. None of the living ones were, at least. Only two of the six remaining Silvers she felt were. The less g’athu wearing the tech gear, the easier the fight would become.

And the fight had to become easier, because no matter how well John was doing, he was in a losing battle. One wrong move and it was over for him. He was just avoiding getting killed, hardly even attacking. Amber had to help. Then she nearly had a heart attack as a new geared-up g’athu appeared out of nowhere and she could feel it was a Gold.

The Gold didn’t attack John with his chains, laser-leg things, or the blue light. He just held an arm out to John. Amber assumed he was casting a manifestation, but she couldn’t feel anything normal. It felt weird. The other g’athu stopped attacking as John knelt on the ground holding his head, his face contorted in agony. Wait, didn’t Lilly say the Golds have mind control or something?

Amber knew she had to take out the Gold. If she was going to die, she wanted to make it count. Go out in a blaze of glory.

There was a lot about Amber John didn’t know about. Party-pooper told her it was safest to hold her cards close to her chest. She couldn’t use her NCS in her animal forms, but Party-pooper had summary sheets for all of them.

All of Amber’s forms were above F-grade. One was B-grade. And the efficiency of her [Stats] were different in each form. Every point of [Strength] in bear form was worth over two points of [Strength] for an F-grade human, the baseline she used to judge her effective scores from.

Amber had the Transmuter [Archetype], which focused on transforming her body in various ways. The types of manifestations she could get with her high [Runes] score were limited by her [Archetype]. She only told John her baseline [Stat] scores, not the effective scores. She had enough rune points to make three glyphs, even though they were the lowest type of glyphs. She only told him about one of them, the one that made her invisible and gave her enough time to transform into a sapient form and hide without being focused on.

All the manifestations she could get as a Transmuter had pretty straightforward names, like [Tiger Claws]. Some of them were named after creatures or things she had never heard of before, and she was thankful she could rename them. She renamed the invisibility manifestation to [And Now You Don’t], based on the old phrase she had heard magicians use on TV since at least the early fifties – ‘now you see me, and now you don’t!’

Actual invisibility manifestations were rare outside of expensive and essence-hungry glyphs, and her glyph only lasted three or four seconds against a same-tier enemy.

Amber also picked a super powerful essence-shell glyph that would wrap her in layers and layers of hard, protective essence. While in the shell, she’d also heal at an advanced rate. It cost a ton of runes too. And cost a lot of essence to cast. She named it [Turtle].

The last glyph Amber got she didn’t rename. She liked the name it came with. [Eyes of the Bượzệrukỹằ]. She had no idea what a Bượzệrukỹằ was, but it sounded super fearsome. The glyph shot a beam of red destruction from her eyes. It had a really long cast time and only got to be super powerful when she charged it up extra too. It cost a lot of essence, but when it was fully charged it hit super hard. It was the most damaging ranged glyph she could get, and best of all, she could cast it while hidden too.

Amber stared at the head of the Gold and started to power [Eyes of the Bượzệrukỹằ]. After ranking up, she had a little bit over half essence left after changing into a demon and then her human form. Then after she hid, then turned into a bear, demon, back into a human, and hid again, she had a good bit under half essence. She didn’t have to worry about holding back now or saving essence since this was the end of the road.

Once the glyph was fully charged, Amber had a good bit less than forty percent essence. She released the glyph and a red beam exploded the head of the Gold g’athu as she became visible to sight and all other senses. She cast [And Now You Don’t] and hid again and was down to a little under thirty percent essence.

The g’athu immediately started directing attacks to where she stood a moment before, but she sprinted away after casting the invisibility glyph, so they hit nothing. John was back on his feet and attacking again. She laughed internally and thought, how do you jerks like having your head explode? Serves you right! Ugly, evil jerks!