Fay launched the icicles again and sent Tsugi back on the run. Explosions threw dirt and scattered ice through the air. Near misses left holes and rips in Tsugi’s clothes, and little cuts on his copper skin here and there. He took off into the forest and used the trees as cover. The icicles hit the trees and scattered like glitter.
“Better!” Fay yelled out, and lifted her hands into the air. Hundreds of icicles formed over the forest and sent scattering icicles to rain down from above. Tsugi quickly darted out of the way and tried to make it around to attack her, but she knew exactly where Tsugi was and kept launching nonstop attacks.
“Tch.” Tsugi was getting irritated. ‘When is she going to run out of magic?’ Tsugi un-clipped one of his kunai and launched it at her, before darting around to swing the kunai on the chain around in the other direction. It went straight for her, but she was able to elegantly dodge it right at the last second, so it only took off a few strands of her hair.
“Much better.” The icicles had stopped. “Follow me.” She led Tsugi deeper into the forest.
The trees grew taller and bigger, making him feel like an ant compared to the powerful towering trees.
“What are we doing?” Tsugi finally mustered up the courage to ask.
“We are tracking an Eathero.” She knelt to the ground and touched the floor, just like how Yamo did in the desert. She lifted the dirt to her nose and sniffed it, before handing it to Tsugi. He looked at the dirt in her hand and to the back of her head. She didn’t turn to look at him, she kept staring straight ahead. When Tsugi made no movement, she finally turned to gaze at him. She always had an expressionless face, and was always very serious. She was also always so monotone every time she said anything and she never laughed or showed any other emotions. “Sniff it.”
It was a weird request, but Tsugi knelt beside her and leaned over to sniff it, there was a faint smell of decay.
“Now look up.” She pointed to the trees above. Tsugi looked up and he could see giant areas of bark from the surrounding trees had been brushed off like something scraped it. “Let’s go.” They continued further into the forest and came upon a bunch of fallen trees, like a blast had occurred in the center and blew out all of the surrounding trees. In the middle was something as big as a house. It was sleeping and snoring away. Its pink leathery skin was mangey, with dry rash-like spots on it. There were only a few patches of gray spiked fur.
“Is that…” Tsugi closed his mouth, when he saw Fay push a finger against hers.
The creature had stopped snoring and its breathing was no longer heavy and slow. It slowly began to rise and move, the surrounding earth trembled with it rolling and pushing itself onto its feet.
“Now you’ve done it.” Fay looked at the creature as it towered over them.
‘How are you still so calm and monotonous?!’ Tsugi’s heart was racing. Fay pulled out her weapon, it was also a chained weapon like Tsugi’s, but she had scythes on the end of them.
The creature turned to face them, and it was a giant rat-like creature that looked diseased. Its skin had patches of rash and some areas were turning black, it was blind in one eye, and it moved weirdly, almost slithering like a snake. Its screech was high pitched like an alarm, making them cover their ears to prevent their eardrums from rupturing.
Even while in pain, Fay’s face remained expressionless, which baffled Tsugi. She charged the instant the noise stopped and flung her weapon beautifully. It crashed into the ground and threw explosions of dirt high into the air. The creature was fast and able to dodge most of her attacks.
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Tsugi charged in to join her, swinging his weapon just as she did. His kunai could only pierce, so it did very little damage to the creature. Fay climbed onto the creature's back and swung at its tail, clipping it clean off at the base. The tail flopped around like a dying snake. She flung the scythe around the creature's neck, and pulled as hard as she could. The creature arched its back and bucked to try to get her off, which almost trampled Tsugi, who was on the ground.
Tsugi remembered Yamo talking about killing spots and threw his kunai straight into the creature's heart, but he missed. The creature was thrashing too wildly. Tsugi saw that the scythes were barely piercing the tough skin on the neck. He ran up the creature and gave a hard kick to the scythes, encouraging them to penetrate the skin. Fay yanked on the chains and they ripped across the tough skin, showering them in blood and tissue. Fay yanked on the chain and caught the returning scythes as she slid down the creatures back, landing elegantly on the ground.
“That’s what we were looking for?” Tsugi panted.
“No, this is a Tarkin. What we are looking for is what fought that.” She flung the blood off her weapon before putting it away and continued into the forest.
“So we’re looking for a more vicious creature than that?” Tsugi pointed behind him.
“Shh.” She bent down and picked up the dirt to sniff it again. “It’s close.”
Tsugi bent down next to her and picked up the dirt to smell it. The smell of decay was a lot stronger than before.
They continued into the forest until they came upon a creature as big as the one from before. It was dark brown and black, with a rainbow shimmer to its feathers and fur; Its face was that of a fox; a long powerful neck like a horse; and its body looked like a black jaguar with the circled patterns. It was gently licking at a wound on its back.
Fay touched Tsugi’s shoulder and encouraged him to kneel. She placed a finger on her lips and gestured for him to stay put. She slowly approached the creature. It quickly jumped onto its feet and growled fiercely toward her. She ignored the threat and sat herself a little ways from it, turning her back to it.
She just played with the dirt and the moss around her, ignoring the creatures' threats of fake charging and kicking up dirt. Eventually the creature became curious and was starting to wonder what she was doing. It peeked over and moved closer and closer, but she made no movements to acknowledge it. Even when the creature got close enough for her to touch it, she still kept doing what she was doing and played with the moss on the ground.
The creature sniffed her hair. Tsugi could see strands of her hair lifting through the air, entering the creature's nose before falling back onto her head. Without lifting her head, she held out a hand to her side. The startled creature backed up a little before sniffing at her hand and nudged its nose into her hand.
It slowly started to trust her and moved in a little closer, allowing her to touch it with her other hand. She lifted the moss she was playing with and carefully placed it on the wound on its arm, causing it to flinch, before it realized she was caring for it. It allowed her to get up and walk around to inspect it, while it carefully observed her every move.
She was able to gain the creature's trust and placed her hand on its muzzle to comfort it. She turned and headed back toward Tsugi, and the creature slowly stood up and followed her.
“Let’s go.” She walked past Tsugi and continued back the way they came. “Ignore it. Don’t acknowledge it, till it acknowledges you first.” Tsugi followed behind her, listening to the very soft steps behind him. It was so quiet, Tsugi wasn’t even sure if it was still following them or not, until a puff of air over his head startled him. The creature was right on top of him, cautiously following and sniffing his hair into its nose, just like it did with Fay. Tsugi’s hair would stick straight up like it was spiked and when it blew out, his hair flattened on his head like it was glued to his head.
Apparently it found Tsugi’s smell very interesting as it sniffed him all the way back.
When they got back, Tsugi didn’t see any doors. It was just a big open field. Fay walked over and placed her hand on the floor and whispered something, then a giant door appeared like a mirage, and swung open.
Tsugi’s jaw dropped to the floor as he followed her through the door, with his hair still spiking and falling with every sniff. Once they all passed through, the door closed and disappeared behind them. They were now in a giant enclosure that might as well be an open field again, because it was so big.
The creature finally left Tsugi and ran over to the dead animal carcass on the ground, allowing Tsugi and Fay to leave the enclosure via the gate in the corner.
“Why did we bring that creature here?” Tsugi smoothed his hair out of his face.
“It’s injured, so we are going to take care of it. Volgan will heal it as soon as he’s able to.”
“Why did the track smell like decay?”
“Its saliva has decaying bacteria that will slowly kill its prey. Which reminds me, you might want to wash your hands very well before you eat. Actually, you should wash them first before you touch anything else.” She walked down the hall.
Tsugi froze, with his hand still in his hair. He quickly pulled his hand away and ran after her.