“Chamrosh,” Trouble announced as she and the rest of the team watched the scope-portal that Scout had set up from her rifle. They could all see the cabins in the distance across the lake where the large bird-dog creatures were sniffing around and clearly ready to be attacked for the freshman team’s very first monster hunt. A decent, but fair challenge for their first shot at this.

“Definitely Chamrosh,” Sands agreed, her silent sister giving a little nod as well. “So how should we play this?” She glanced toward Cameron Reid, their team mentor.

“However you want,” Cameron in turn replied simply. The black girl who had been assigned as their team mentor was standing well out of the way, her fingertip brushing over the head of her pet lizard as it perched on her shoulder. “I’m just here to step in if you really mess up or definitely need help. You’re good right now. Remember, you can ask for advice, even if it means you don’t get as many points. I’ll tell you what though, it’s better to get a couple less points and still win than to refuse to ask for help and get nothing. So if you need it, I’m here. But you guys got this. Remember that extra training we did this week? You can totally figure this out.” She gave them a thumbs up with her free hand.

“Uh,” Hannah hesitantly spoke up. “Are we really going over there to kill those things? Because I can barely kill a spider. And I mean like the little kind, not the giant Shelob sort, haha--wait. Those things really exist, don’t they? There are really giant spiders out there.” As she said that, the girl looked around as though afraid that one of them had managed to manifest itself and sneak up behind her at that very moment. A soft, slightly weak whine escaped her at the thought.

“We’re killing them because if we don’t, they’ll kill a lot more people,” Trouble informed her. “Innocent people. And don't worry about giant spiders right now, keep your head in the game.”

Be nice, the voice in her head reminded her. She's new to all this, remember? She barely found out monsters are a real thing a few weeks ago.

I know, I know, Trouble replied inwardly. I'm not trying to be mean, but she needs to focus or she's gonna get hurt. I really don't want to be responsible for that. We’ve got enough to deal with as it is.

Aloud, she announced, “Split into two teams of three. We need a gun on each side. Scout, you’ll be with Sands and Paul.” She nodded toward the tall, sandy-haired boy from Kentucky, who gripped his twin hand-axes while returning her nod. “I’ll go with Hannah and Gordon.”

“Fair,” Gordon himself agreed. He was already combining his sword and shield into its gun form, which looked like a blackpowder rifle mixed with a tommy gun. “So we split up and go around the lake, then hit them from both sides.”

Paul was nodding. “Figure each melee pair can jump a bird-dog together. Gun people cover them, keeping the other bird-dogs down so the other two can team up and take them one at a time?”

“Exactly,” Trouble confirmed. “Scout, Gordon, just try to keep the Chamrosh who aren’t being attacked by your melee teammates busy so they can’t jump in and hit us from behind. Everybody ready?” She looked around before focusing on Hannah, who looked weak in the knees. Her voice softened slightly. “Just stay with me. It'll be okay.”

The team exchanged another few words before splitting up. They left Cameron behind, though their mentor would definitely be keeping an eye on them throughout this whole thing. Each trio began to make their way around the lake, being careful to keep an eye on the cabins where the Chamrosh were, just in case they started moving. But the creatures stayed basically where they were.

As she walked, Trouble glanced toward Hannah once more, voice low. “Remember when you killed the Peridle? You managed that and it was basically a giant bug.”

Blanching at the memory, Hannah weakly replied, “I guess I wasn't really thinking about it. I mean, not until afterward. But now I keep having dreams about the way that… that giant cockroach splattered. It--” She grimaced. “It was gross. But I also kinda felt a little bad about it? I know that's weird, but I did. The thing wasn’t even really like… conscious or anything. You said they’re only smart when they’re in a big group, and that one was by itself. It didn’t know what was going on.”

Slowing slightly, Trouble exhaled. Inwardly, she muttered, See, she's gonna end up getting in trouble. A slight smirk crossed her face very briefly as she added, And not in the fun way.

Gross, came the response. Don't forget, I'm in here. If you decide to do something about this crush of yours, let me out first. I do not want to be trapped in your brain while you… yeah.

Restraining the urge to snicker, Trouble glanced toward Gordon, who was clearly waiting for her to say something. Then she turned her attention back to Hannah. “You went through the Edge. You can do this. It… helps. You know how you said you weren't really thinking about the fact that you were killing that thing until it was done? The Edge will help you do what needs to be done. It gives you a sort of… hunter instinct. Just trust it. But let me handle most of this. Gordon can pin the others down so we only fight one at a time. And when we do fight each one, I'll keep its attention focused on me. You wait till you see an opening, then step in and jab it. I’ll try to pin one down so you can get a kill and a boost from it.” After a brief pause, she added, “Trust me. Trust us.” Her hand waved toward Gordon as well. “We’ll keep you safe.”

“Yes,” Gordon agreed flatly. “So will the teachers. They're watching this whole thing. They won't let anything bad happen. And Cameron’s watching too. She’ll step in if things go sideways.”

Though she was clearly still nervous about the whole thing, Hannah gave a quick nod. Carefully reaching down to the belt of her light-blue trimmed uniform, she produced what looked like two sword-hilt-sized handles. One for each hand. Her fingers moved over them, finding the dials just under the hand guards. As she slid the dials, a shimmering blue energy blade emerged from one, and a red blade from the other. Sliding each dial a bit more shifted the blue blade to white, and the red one to yellow. After a brief moment of indecision, she shut the blades off entirely and held the two handles closer together, roughly six inches apart. That time, when she turned the dials, blades didn’t appear as they had before. Instead, a pale green solid energy shaft connected the two handles and extended out to either side, forming a single long staff. Unlike the blades from the energy swords, she could hold onto the green shaft without hurting herself, allowing the girl to use it like any other staff. Once the staff was formed, a short blade emerged from either end. One was red, the other blue.

“What, umm, what should I use?” Hannah asked, shifting the colors through all four options.

“Ice is always good,” Gordon. “It can slow them down.”

Trouble nodded. “Do ice and lightning. Fire and water are okay, but ice can slow them down and lightning can stun them.”

Still clearly nervous, Hannah took the advice, shifting one side of the staff to yellow for lightning and the other to white for ice. “Okay,” she managed. “I--I’m ready. I think.”

They had reached the very edge of the cabin grounds then, and could hear the creatures in the distance. They could even see one of them poking its head through the trash cans next to the main cabin entrance. “Okay,” Trouble whispered, “Let’s check on the others.”

The other three members of the team confirmed through the communication badges that they were in position on the opposite side. Scout apparently had a good shot through one of her scope-portals at the creatures inside the cabin, while the one outside was still sniffing through that trash in an attempt to find something worthwhile to scarf down.

“Okay,” Trouble murmured, “Scout, you take the shot inside on the count of three. Gordon, hit the one by the trash cans at the same time, then move your aim to that main front window. It's already broken, so that's obviously how they got in. The second Scout takes the shot, they’ll come straight out looking for us. Open fire, wound them as much as you can until they separate. Then we'll go after the nearest ones. You help Scout pin down the others. All good?” Once everyone confirmed they were on-board, she counted off. “One… two… three.”

Instantly, Scout opened fire, her shot ringing out. The second she did, there was an assortment of terrible screeches and screams of rage from inside the cabin. The one who had been digging through the trash staggered slightly as Gordon’s rain of bullets slammed into its side, before spinning toward them. With an even louder screech than its brethren, it spun toward the spot where the bullets were coming from and sprinted toward them, dodging and weaving as much as it could. That particular Chamrosh appeared to have the body of a doberman and the head of and wings of a hawk. It launched itself, using those wings to glide so it could cross the distance faster, intending to tear Gordon’s throat out in retaliation for the attack.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

But Trouble got there first, meeting the creature halfway. As she lunged, her hand came up, and something emerged from her uniform jacket. A long, thin metal snake slid out from her sleeve where it had been coiled up around her arm. The cyberform serpent lunged until most of its body was free, allowing Trouble to catch its tail. In that moment, it shifted form. The snake body flattened somewhat, while sharp edges emerged all along both sides of its body. At the same time, it stiffened. In an instant, the snake had transformed into a sword. Its now-razor-sharp body cut through one of the Chamrosh’s extended wings, even as Trouble dove forward to carry herself under and behind the monster.

Shrieking as it crashed to the ground, the Chamrosh spun in the dirt to face its new attacker. Behind her, Trouble could hear more of the creatures emerging and spreading out, but trusted Gordon and Scout to do their jobs and keep the majority pinned down. She could also hear Sands and Paul fighting another of the creatures, and silently wished them luck.

Meanwhile, she had this one to deal with. As the hawk-doberman snarled and snapped at her with its tooth-filled beak, she took a quick sidestep before lashing out with her sword. The Chamrosh jumped back, but that didn’t help as the ‘blade’ of her weapon extended to three times its normal length, half of it turning back into a snake so the cyberform’s head could bite into the Chamrosh’s side, delivering a potent paralytic poison. As the creature staggered, its entire left side going numb, Trouble lunged, ducking its right wing as it lashed out before she shifted her snake back to its sword form and cut straight through the creature’s neck.

Its head tumbled to the ground, while a gold aura flared up around the blonde girl. She gasped and felt that briefly blinding rush of pleasure, but her body was already pivoting to dive sideways away from the Chamrosh that had been charging up behind her.

Thanks, she sent to her partner before rolling to her feet. She had already turned to deal with the Chamrosh’s follow-up, but Hannah was there. As the monster started to lunge after Trouble, Hannah whacked it as hard as she could with the white side of her staff. Ice spread over the spot where she had struck, and the thing pivoted back that way a good bit slower than it had been moving an instant earlier. The ice was slowing it down. In the next moment, as it opened its mouth to shriek, the yellow side of Hannah’s staff slammed into it, sending a jolt of electricity through the thing that made it yelp.

Before the creature could recover, Trouble lunged forward and snapped her sword out toward its right side. The Chamrosh pivoted away from it, beak snapping as though to bite the weapon. But in mid-swing, the blade shifted into its snake form once more and curved all the way around, like a whip, to curl up behind the Chamrosh so the snake head could bite into the opposite side of its neck. The creature staggered and slumped to one side as its body was partially paralyzed.

Snapping her snake back into its sword form, Trouble pivoted before bringing her foot up and around to slam into the side of the creature’s head. Between the paralysis and the hard blow, it hit the ground with a sharp squawk.

“Take it, Hannah!” the blonde blurted. She brought her foot down to hold the thing steady, meeting the other girl’s gaze. “You've got this, trust me! This thing will eat innocent people if you let it go, I promise.”

Still, Hannah hesitated briefly, staring down at the thing. Then she grimaced before quickly yanking on her twin handles to pull the staff apart. A quick turn of the dials made them produce two red blades, and she flipped them around in her hands before quickly driving the weapons down. The weapons went right through the creature, drawing a squeal from it before the thing died, immediately catching fire.

Taking her foot away from the flames, Trouble reached out to catch Hannah’s shoulder as she staggered and gasped. Her pale green aura flared. “Ohhh, that’s--oh wow.”

Ignoring how distracting that was, Trouble gave her a shoulder a pat before pivoting to focus on the third Chamrosh. But there was no need. Gordon had finished it off. And a glance toward the others revealed that they had dealt with the other three. Which meant--

“We’re done?” Sands asked, looking around the battlefield at the corpses (one of which was still smoldering and giving off a smell disturbingly reminiscent of chicken). “Wait, did we actually finish? We did--we did it!” She jumped up and down a couple times, dumping her arms into the air with her construction mace held tightly in one hand. “Hell yeah!”

Taking a moment to make sure things looked clear, Trouble shifted the sword back to its snake form and let the cyberform drape over her neck. Her fingers gently brushed under his chin. “Good boy, Herbie.”

Smiling faintly as the snake preened, she slowly nodded to the others. “Yeah, looks like we’re good. Let's check in and let them know we're done so we can get out of here.” Even as she said that, a thought was passing through her mind. They were keeping track, weren't they? So if we're done, why haven't they already popped in? And where’s Cameron?

I’m not sure, came the response. Maybe there's something else to the test? Did they want to see how you dealt with cleaning up after a hunt?

Pausing briefly, the blonde girl considered that. No, I don’t think so. This feels like something--

“Aww, you guys wanna leave so soon?” The voice came from the corner of one of the cabins, as an older boy emerged from the shadows. He was tall, almost achingly handsome, with close-cut dark hair, a perfectly toned and tanned form, and mischievous eyes. He wore dark green, loose-fit pants and a white silk shirt. Which itself was a bit of an oddity, given his tendency to go around without one.

“Noble,” Trouble announced flatly, staring at the boy. Herbie hissed that way dangerously before slipping off her shoulder to drop to her hand and shift into his sword form.

Not Noble, the voice in her head reminded her. Seosten.

Yeah, I know, Vanessa, Trouble informed her partner. But given that I don't know that Seosten’s name, Noble works well enough. Besides, if I talk about the Seosten stuff right now, I’ll have to explain it to the rest of the team.

Pretty sure you’re going to have to explain some of it anyway, Vanessa replied simply.

Sure enough, Sands was looking back and forth between them, holding her mace out protectively. “What-- Is this one of your Eden’s Garden friends, Trouble?” She demanded suspiciously. Sands had somewhat opened up to the blonde girl over the past few weeks, despite initially worrying that she could be a spy or something. But now, it seemed that seeing Noble abruptly show up had brought back some of that initial uncertainty and distrust. “What the hell’s going on?”

Noble, or the Seosten who was puppeting him, spread his arms wide in a shrug. “Well, given your friend there tried to kill me the last time we met, I thought it was about time for me to return the favor.”

“Tried to kill-what?” Paul had stepped up beside Trouble, as though ready to protect her. Which was kind of amusing in a distracting sort of way.

“Oh, you didn’t tell your new team the story?” ‘Noble’ tutted a bit, cracking his neck casually. “You didn't tell them how you turned into a complete psychopath and nearly killed me in front of a bunch of important people, including my own grandmother? Who, you know, happens to be Victor Ikita?”

“Victor Ikita?” Hannah started in confusion. “What kind of name--”

“Victor is a title,” Trouble informed her without looking away from the possessed figure in front of them. “They’re the leaders of Eden’s Garden. Ikita’s one of the Victors for the Eternal Eye tribe.”

“That’s how Trouble here got… well, in trouble,” ‘Noble’ half-drawled. “She'd be sitting in a Garden cell right now if your headmistress here hadn’t stepped in. Between Gaia and that dipshit Seller, she got off really easy for attempted murder of a Victor’s grandson.”

It wasn't that simple, of course. The truth was that the Seosten who was now possessing Noble had been attempting to possess Trouble herself. But she didn’t realize that Trouble was already possessed by Vanessa. The two of them had formed a partnership several years earlier, ever since they had both run into each other while searching for answers about the Seosten who was already possessing Ikita herself. Before that, Vanessa had been snooping around her foster family’s home, manifesting her possession ability when the ‘father’ confronted and grabbed her. Which had led to her learning that he was being paid by Ikita to keep an eye on her. After running away, she started snooping on what and who this Ikita was, which had led her to the same office building a young, suspicious Trouble had been checking out while on a ‘field trip’ to Earth.

So now they were partners, trying to learn what was actually going on at Eden’s Garden and what had really happened to both Trouble’s family and Vanessa’s. When the Seosten girl had attempted to possess Trouble only to fail, they reacted violently. The resulting fight had spilled out further than they intended, and when the Seosten woman had possessed Noble, it gave her a chance to drag the fight into an area where they had been seen in public by Ikita herself and several others.

And now here they were, exiled from Garden and only saved from being imprisoned by Gaia’s intervention. Things had… gone a bit wrong.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Paul slowly announced, eyes moving back and forth between Trouble and Noble, “But I'm getting the impression you probably shouldn't be here. So, why don't you pack it up and head on back to your tree? That way, none of this has to get ugly.”

‘Noble’ laughed lightly, raising an eyebrow. “I'm sorry, are you trying to threaten me? That's cute.”

“No, that’s not cute,” a new voice declared. Cameron had appeared, standing directly behind Trouble with one hand on her shoulder. “Tad Cooper’s cute.”

“Who--” ‘Noble’ started, just as the girl’s blue-tongued skink launched himself into the space between them. But this wasn’t any ordinary skink. Cameron had used her favorite power on her favorite lizard, and now the creature was a good four feet tall at the shoulders and twenty feet long, using most of that body to block Trouble and the others from the Eden’s Garden boy. His scales were as hard as steel, and as he hissed, frost formed along the ground in front of him. He was ready to protect the group from the intruder.

“See?” Cameron announced. “Adorable. And he’s not just cute. He knows tricks too. Tricks like waking me up after you hit me from behind like a fucking coward.”

Staring intently at the giant armored lizard as it continued to freeze the ground around itself with its breath, ‘Noble’ seemed to consider his options for a moment before offering a casual smile. “Well, fair enough.” His eyes found Trouble, narrowing. “We’ll have that conversation later, about all those secrets you’ve been keeping.”

With that, he took a step backward as the shadows from the nearby cabin seemed to stretch out, enveloping the boy. Then he was gone.

A moment of silence passed, as though the group was making sure they weren’t about to be attacked from some other direction. Then, one by one, Cameron, Paul, Gordon, Scout, Hannah, and Sands turned to face Trouble. Tad Cooper did the same, his enormous lizard face frowning just as intently and curiously as the others.

“Okay,” Sands started, the first to find her voice.

“What the hell is going on?”