"We've got company," Talan mutters meanwhile on the bridge, turning away from the railing and the scene behind him to stare into the opposite direction.
"Enemies—about three of them, northwest, eleven o'clock. At their pace, they'll be here in the next ninety seconds." His right hand presses the edge of his palm against his forehead while his left foot rests on the opposite railing.
"And one of them's already with Rin. Tch… looks like they really got us this time."
His words draw their attention. His movements, though, bring something else into view: a rectangular black box hanging from his belt, about the size of both his hands. He grabs it with his left paw, claws piercing two neat holes into its surface.
"Now this too…" Daclan sighs, as Talan lowers his hand from his brow and raises it, palm open, in front of him.
In the next instant, sparks jolt from the black box, running along his fingers, over his paw, and wrapping around his body—using him as a living circuit.
Realizing he's serious, Shato opens his cloak. Six small inner pockets line the right side, each one waiting. He reaches for one, but Daclan catches his arm first, shaking his head.
"We don't need that," he says firmly, still holding his wrist.
"You sure about that?" Shato presses.
Silence. Masked gazes meet, neither of them willing to give in.
That silence is broken only by Talan, whose eyes flash yellow as he gathers the current in his right hand. The drained box clatters to the ground. He pulls his arm back, close to his ear, like he's about to hurl a medicine ball. Sparks leap across the fur of his skin, a glowing yellow sphere swelling, growing larger until it fills his palm completely. His eyes snap open. He leans forward, arm following through and hurls the orb into the thick of the fog.
It vanishes instantly, swallowed by shadow, until even the last spark fades. Useless, it seems. Only—it isn't.
Seconds later it flares again, bursting with sudden light, mixing with something else—bright pink, exploding across the invisible horizon. Like lightning erupting inside a thundercloud, yellow and pink split the void, merge together, and collapse into a single blinding sphere.
The echo comes next. A roar, the sound of colliding blasts rolling toward them, booming so loud it could be mistaken for two cars colliding head-on at full speed.
Then it fades. Silence returns—the silence Talan had shattered.
Without a word, he turns, strides past Daclan and Shato, and heads for the end of the bridge.
"Trust us, Shato," Daclan ends their quiet standoff, his sigh serving as confirmation as he pushes himself upright.
"Thanks," Shato murmurs, gaze following Talan's back as he reaches the far end.
"And what's your plan?" Shato calls after him, halting Talan mid-step.
"We go there, kick some kids' asses, and come back. Simple," Talan replies flatly, his tone almost angry, but still controlled.
"That sounds… unsatisfying. Don't you have something better?" Daclan shoots back.
"I'll do it alone if you're scared of a few kids," Talan shrugs, veering right and sliding into the first wisps of fog.
"Haah… The only kid here is you. And how do you even kn—" Daclan cuts himself off, realizing he's lost sight of him. He hurries after without another word.
Focused, he follows, step by step into the mist, across the grass, along the river, further from the bridge.
Five, maybe ten seconds pass—until a silhouette emerges.
"Like hell I'd let you handle this alone," Daclan breathes out quickly, skipping forward like a child to close the last stretch. He lifts his hand to clap the figure's shoulder—and freezes mid-motion.
Because the figure, revealed as Talan, already stands facing three others. Likely the very enemies he'd mentioned.
"Well, that was faster than I thought," Daclan greets them, lifting his chin as if to look taller.
"Oh-ho, even a welcome party? You must be dying to die," comes the voice of the middle figure, a woman, stepping forward to set herself apart from the other two.
"You think so, Fiona? Maybe they just knew we were coming. Ahh! Ryuu betrayed us!" blurts another voice, also female but much higher, almost childlike.
"Ugh, Lina, you're always sooo hasty," Fiona chides, suddenly spinning and wrapping her arms around the one on her left.
"But that's why you're sooo adorable!" she squeals, hugging tight enough to lift the much smaller girl off the ground.
"U-uagh… F-Fiona I-I c-can't—" Lina chokes, her tiny arms flailing against the suffocating embrace.
"You'll smother her," interrupts the third, the tallest of the trio, her voice just a shade deeper, but still unmistakably female.
Fiona startles, instantly releasing the little one, who collapses to her knees, gasping for air.
"Ohh, Linchen! Sorry, sorry, I'm sooo sorry! I went overboard again!" Fiona fawns, patting her head in apology.
"You three really can't be left alone for a second," sighs the tallest, stepping forward now—first of the three to fully enter view of the two Aces.
Her black cloak stirs in the wind, arms hidden beneath. The only mark of her identity: a gray wolf mask, with its empty eyes locked on them and a stare sharp enough to pierce through their soul.
"Show's over?" Talan growls instantly, voice sharp, right paw clenched into a fist and thrust toward his opponent.
"Leona. That's the name," she introduces herself flatly.
"And those two kids back there—Lina and Fiona," she adds, sweeping her arms wide to gesture behind her.
"Hey, hey, hey—are you kidding me?" Talan shoots back, suddenly grinning, almost laughing, as though the absurdity is too much to process. He finds it ridiculous, but he can't quite believe it either.
"With all due respect, I'm never kidding. I come from noble stock—unlike the likes of you," Leona replies, arms vanishing once more beneath her cloak.
"Ahahaha, oh man. I'm gonna carve your smug faces into the dirt with absolute pleasure!" Talan roars, laughing, still in disbelief, pulling his fist back into a battle stance as his eyes flash yellow.
In the very next instant—before Leona even has time to blink—Talan launches forward. She doesn't realize it, or at least not fast enough, when his fist slams into her mask and sends her flying across the grass.
For a heartbeat, everyone freezes. Nothing moves but the faint breeze, the swaying blades, the flowing river.
But the moment passes, right as Leonas Body slams into the ground, starting the battle nonetheless.
Instantly a green light flickers up, right at Talan's side, who gets jumped at by the middle girl, Fiona, and her rapier purely made out of living grass. It's thin, thinner even than her smallest finger, but its thrust is all the more quicker— yet not fast enough.
Talan slips aside. The blade scrapes his cheek, drawing a line of blood across the fur, before his fist drives straight into her stomach. Lightning bursts through him, surging down his arm, crackling into her body at the point of impact. She convulses once, then collapses instantly, paralyzed—completely unable to fight.
But the fight is far from won. A tiny black knife whistles toward him. He blocks with his paw, eyes snapping toward its source: the smallest one—Lina.
No time to study her further. A pink sphere flares in her hand, no it's already flying at him.
He ducks again, way too close, as the heat sears the back of his neck the moment the sphere misses, and in the same breath he propels himself forward, ramming his knee into her chest.
Again electricity floods out of him, right into the body of the little one.
And similarly to fiona, she collapses in a single blink, with her limbs useless and her fingers unable to even twitch.
"Heheheh… That's it?! That's all you've got?!" Talan bellows, his prey swallowed in the blinding storm of his electricity.
"You give your names, reveal yourselves, claim the Wolves as your banner—and this is all the strength you bring?!" He spins—only to find Leona before him again.
Just an arm's length apart. But the golden scepter in her hands, tipped like a crown, fills that space—erases it—and strikes.
It lands against his fist, against this furred knuckles. At first, useless. Harmless in a sens. But then—in the span of a blink—his transformation falters. The yellow energy in his fur melts, as if it's being sucked away, leaving only bare skin, and a hollowing weakness behind. A feeling, comparable with ones blood getting sucked out in gallons.
"Filthy gnat!" Talan snarls, yanking his hand back. But in the same instant, the stolen energy concentrates at the crown-shaped tip—and fires.
A yellow beam, as thick as an arm, tears through the air, driving straight for his shoulder.
Though it never lands. The reflection of brown light lights up within their eyes, as a barrier is wrapping around Talan, shattering it into fragments of golden light that brighten even the deepest shadows of the battlefield—for just an instant.
But an instant is all that Talan needs.
Energy floods back into his bare skin, fur regrows underneath it and finally, his paw lashes out—quick and precise. But Leona slips away. Left, right, back, dodging every strike as though it had been rehearsed.
At least until she reaches the edge of the grass, the riverbank behind her. She halts, nowhere left to run. Talan sees his chance. His fist cuts the air, closer, closer, so close it already reflects in her eyes—and stops.
Bursting from the erath to coil around hist fist, big vines spread and wrapped him. For a moment the confusion flickers across his face. But then, he sees it.
The faint glow of green eyes, the twitching hand of Fiona, still crumpled on the ground.
"nho … horrys".
Crumpled and mumbling.
"Hwe have hmo-more g-going fhor us".
Her slurred mouth stammers, while the vines surge again, for another tendril to snare Talan's left arm, continuously binding him in place more and more.
"Tch… Can you pests really only annoy me with your—" But he doesn't finish.
A sphere blossoms behind him. Pink. Huge. A pink, huge sphere, larger than Lina herself. Larger than her body could ever contain.
It flickers, wavers, unstable—and launches.
The glow swallows him, flooding his body in pink light, while only moments remain before catastrophe.
But moments are all he needs.
Instinct drops his gaze. His eyes close. Arms pull with everything he has—so hard the vines rip loose from the ground. He seizes the ends, crushes them in his paws and breaks free in a single snap.
The sphere looms closer, already reflecting in his back. He dives, no, hurls himself sideways. Just in time. Just as the blast misses him by inches, leaving him rolling across the ground.
"Close…" he exhales, relief flickering through him, certain he dodged it.
But certainty dies in the same breath—killed by the shining gleam of the scepter on the far side. The gleam of Leona's scepter, who's sweeping it right back at him.
With it's crown tip glowing in the same pink light, that just missed him. As though it had swallowed the pink sphere whole.
Just like it did with his own power, before.
Just like it did with his paw.
"Cheap tricks…" Talan mutters, just as the glow gathers into a pink laser, that tears through the space between him and Leona.
The beam slams against the brown barrier from before, then spreads—wrapping around the shield, around the tiger, around Talan himself. It swallows him whole, shreds the ground beneath his feet, and vanishes at last into the fog behind him.
Until the very last spark has fired.
Until the last trace of pink energy has bled into the mist.
Until only scorched grass, cracked stone, the tense stares of his enemies—and the fractured shell of the brown barrier remain.
A barrier that once encircled him in protection.
But it shatters, breaking into fragments, collapsing into dust that dissolves as though it had never been there at all.
Cautiously, Talan rises. Unharmed. Nothing but the shallow cut along his cheek. Casually, he brushes the dirt from his clothes before lifting his gaze again. Straight at the three figures, watching him in silence.
"Well?" comes another voice—Daclan, appearing quietly at his side.
The hollows of his mask flicker with a muted brown glow, dimmer with each blink.
"They're strong. No doubt about it. But they're Wolves—couldn't have expected less," Talan answers, oddly cheerful.
"And can you beat them?" Daclan presses, his own eyes fixed on the three foes now rising to their feet.
"Tahaha! Please," Talan bursts out laughing, wiping the blood from his cheek with the pad of his paw.
"They're just stupid kids with a few pathetic parlor tricks!"