“Guys?!” I huffed out a weak shout while doubling over gasping for air. “Where did they go…” I cough out, winded by sprinting after the group for a few minutes. “Was I always this weak?” I stand up and tilt my head back, while putting my hands behind my head to breathe better. “How can I remember this, but not my name, fu-” A loud explosion nearby caused me to stumble and scramble behind a tree for cover.

“Shoot them! Don’t let them get closer!” A gruff commanding voice yelled from the direction of the explosion. “Use your guns, you morons!” A bunch of screams followed by sporadic gunfire followed.

“Dodge when they charge you! Don’t run at them, I’m surrounded by fools!” Another explosion went off.

“What is going on?” I peeked around the tree in the direction of all the noise, I didn’t see anything. “This is a dumb idea.” I stay low while moving from tree to tree. Once I make it to the tree line, I can see a wide open area filled with carnage. “Those people again, and some giant deer?” One of the people fighting lets out a blood chilling scream as they are pierced by the giant deer’s glowing antlers, before it tosses the body high into the air.

“Set them on fire if you don’t have any ammo!” A man yelled while yanking a wooden club from a thug’s hand. “Use your Pal, not a stick!” He slapped the person before turning to fire his handgun at a deer, which caused the deer to flinch and lose its glow. The slapped thug pulls out a sphere before it turns into a big fox that seems to be on fire. They pick it up and place it in a holster like sling, then they squeeze its tail causing it to open its mouth and release a jet of flames.

“A living flamethrower, how-” A body falls right in front of me. “Shi-” The man in charge turned my way. I covered my mouth and cowarded behind the tree, in hopes I wasn’t spotted.

“We only need one of them, kill the rest!” He shouted before firing at another deer. I let out a sigh of relief, he didn’t see me.

“Woah…” My focus is brought back to the corpse in front of me, because it starts glowing. “Trippy.” With a small sucking sound, the light is pulled into a small marble shaped sphere before a pop sounds out. The body is gone, the blood splatter gone, the damage to the ground it made on impact gone, and in its place are a few bullets with one of those blue spheres.

“The Direhowls will be here soon, so hurry up!” The leader’s attention is on the last three deers who have taken out about a third of his group. “New guys, get your Pal Spheres ready!” The people standing behind him all pull out one of those blue spheres, while they start to crouch down. “The right one, go!” He points at a deer that caught fire from fighting the guy with a flamethrowing fox.

“Burn you mo-” The thug burning the deer gets blasted by a ball of light shot from the deer’s antlers. He is knocked back a good distance, and only a tree stops his momentum. “Get’em.” He drops the fox as he coughs up blood. The fire fox runs back to attack the deer, as the group with spheres rushes the deer.

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“One!” A sphere holding thug shouted as he hurled his sphere at the deer. Upon contact with the burning deer, it split into two pieces before hovering in place. The deer was then instantly transformed into light as the sphere sucked it up. Once it was inside, the sphere slammed shut while still hovering. “Yes! I go-” The sphere burst into tiny pieces releasing the angry deer.

“You can catch them, just like that old cartoon?” My childhood memories of saturday morning cartoons stirred in my thoughts. “Can I be the very best?” I chuckle at my joke, but it died down as I watched the sphere thrower get trampled to death by the creature they tried to catch. “I’d rather choose life.” I was about to turn and run away, but froze when I turned around.

“Two left, try them both!” The leader shouted at the sphere holders. They started sprinting around the deers tossing the spheres at them, but the creatures kept breaking out. “Shit, Direhowl pack incoming! Focus on one Eikthyrdeer and kill the other! Gunners to the back, focus on the Direhowls!” He reloads his weapon and starts to fire at the giant wolves entering the clearing.

“Nice doggo?” I raise my hands up, trying to show I mean no harm. I slowly back up to the tree, before sliding down the trunk to sit on the ground. The wolf that was growling at me with a murderous glare just crept forwards. “Please don’t eat me.” I plead to the beast. It sniffs me, then it huffs in my face. I swear I could see a look of ‘pathetic human’ in its eyes. It looks into the clearing at the battle, before looking back down at me. “I’m not with them.” It rushes off into the clearing to help its pack.

“Burn them.” The leader tossed out a green colored sphere, and out came a red shark headed short creature. It let out a roar before shooting fireball projectiles at the fast moving wolves. “Will someone just catch it already!” He turns back to yell at his struggling group attempting to capture the deer.

“I need to get out of here.” I managed to stand back up, taking a deep breath, I was about to sprint back the way I came. I turn back to the intense fight, then down at the sphere just sitting in the open a few feet from my spot. “Maybe I should take it, it might be worth it.” The gun fire causes me to cover behind the tree again. “This is a terribly stupid idea!” I whisper through clenched teeth as a few stray bullets hit the tree I’m hiding behind.

“We got it sir!” One of the thugs shouted. The hovering sphere that caught the deer magically returned to their outstretched hand.

“Kill the Direhowls then!” The leader shouted as he rolled to dodge a charging wolf’s attack. He opened fire into its back, the bullets hurt the creature with their force, but they can’t seem to penetrate the creature.

“This is a bad idea!” I tell myself as I sprint into the opening, hoping that no one notices me. I grab the sphere while ignoring the bullets around it. “It’s lighter than I thought. What is it made of?” It’s such a mysterious object that I momentarily forget where I am.

“Who’s that?!” The leader's shout gets my attention, he is staring right at me. “Someone get him!” I sprint back into the woods, my life depending on it.