The next morning, Petal was stepping through the fallen, amber foliage that hid a majority of the grass and dirt below it. The sounds and smells of the forest around her filled her senses, and a small trace of ash was mixed in with the drifting aromas. The party proceeded through the densely packed trees, taking in anything that seemed off or out of place. Flattened bushes and pathways where the flora had been terminated, which signified that something used those walkways quite frequently. As they moved further south, the smell of ash grew stronger, and others began mixing in with it. Petal began noticing the scents of machinery, accompanied by the smell of people and oil. What sounded like the rumbling of an engine could be faintly made out in the distance, and as they continued pressing on, she pinpointed it to be further to the east.
"It's odd." Mila stated, staring east with his piercing, illuminated, crimson eyes.
"It means that we're dealing with people, not just Grimm." Petal said.
"What are people doing all the way out here?" asked Shimmer.
"Doing something they aren't supposed to, no doubt." Mila replied. "Why else would they come out here if not to hide whatever it was they're doing?"
"Petal, over here." Rose called out, moving towards a nearby tree.
Petal glanced over and noticed large gashes scarred into the enormous trunk, jagged and deep. At once she knew what it was from, as she had seen more than enough of the Grimm to know what they left behind as they traveled.
"There's more of them further on." said Mila, walking west, towards another bundle of scarred and gnarled flora.
"So, we have two different paths to investigate." Petal stated, stopping beside him to examine the rigid grooves. She ran her clawed finger along the inside of one and grimaced.
"What's the plan, then?" asked Shimmer.
"We split up." answered Petal, turning to face Rose and Shimmer. "I want you two to head east, towards whatever is going on over there. Mila, you're with me. Rose, Shimmer, be careful. We don't know who these people might be but I don't think they'll be friendly."
"We'll be fine." Rose said, confidently. "Besides, if we need some help, we can leave, or even call you if need be."
"At least we're dealing with people." Shimmer added. "Whatever made those marks is something I wouldn't be excited to run into."
"Alright. With that settled, let's get this over with. Recon only, we'll figure out a plan afterwards, and don't do anything stupid." Petal ordered.
As she turned to walk away, Mila moved closer to Shimmer and took her hand, staring intently into her red and white eyes. "Only use that semblance if you absolutely have to, got me?"
Shimmer smiled, despite his stern and completely serious expression. "You worry too much, Mila. I've never lost control before so I think you can relax a bit."
"Still, just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it can't or won't."
"Alright, I'll be careful, as long as you promise to do the same."
Mila gave an affirming nod before releasing her hand. He flashed another cautious glare before following behind Petal. They continued heading west, and Petal was beginning to notice many more signs of habitation, including broken brush and several scars carved into the natural walls of stone that were now appearing among the lush forest environment. She figured this meant they were reaching some of the caves that Flint had mentioned before. The ground itself was growing more elevated in places and the stone walls were becoming much more noticeable, turning into hills of mountainous nature. There was also the growing arrangement of odd scents, all mixing in a way that Petal could barely recognize any of them.
"We're getting closer." Mila said.
"I know. You can stop using your semblance now. If you want to, of course."
"I would." Mila said, letting his crimson eyes return to the color of charcoal. "What do you think we'll find?" he questioned.
"I have no idea. I don't think it will be too much longer before we find out." she said, smiling slightly.
The signs and scents grew more abundant and clear as they reached a downward slope, at the base of which was a gaping hole that acted as an entrance for a dark, cavernous void. They approached it cautiously before stepping inside.
"I won't be able to see in there." Mila stated, as they stepped further inside, to the point that the sun's light from outside barely reached them any longer.
Petal reached into the pouch on her belt and tossed a black rod over to him. He caught it out of what she assumed to be mostly instinct, and after examining it, he asked, "One of our glowsticks?"
"I forgot to take them out of my pouch. Good thing, huh?" she asked, grinning at him, though he could not see it.
Mila twisted both of the metal ends, creating a hissing sound as a glowing, colorful mist filled the interior of the cylindrical object. A powerful, blue glow filled the depths with light, somewhat blinding Petal momentarily as her eyes adjusted. After moving her arm, which she was using as a shield from the newfound source of light, away from her eyes, Petal looked around to examine their surroundings more intently. Spires of twisted earth both descended from the ceiling and rose from the ground. Water dripped from the rock above them, splashing in countless puddles of murky liquid below them, casting an echoing and nearly never-ending arrangement of noise. Along the walls further in, Petal noticed a handful of archways, all leading further into darkness and mystery. The odd assortment of scents were powerful in here, almost to a point of being overbearing and disorientating, meaning that this was where she was supposed to be.
Mila began scanning the walls as Petal searched around for any signs of life or occupation. As they discovered in the forest and stone leading here, she found the marks of claws left behind on walls and oversized pillars of rock. She then moved towards one of the many archways and peeked inside. Upon entering the room, she found dozens of wooden crates in varying sizes, though they all shared a single similarity. On the top faces of every one resided a sigil, inked in black, and shaped like the head of a Beowolf. Mila was soon at her side, examining the collection of neatly stacked containers.
"Do you recognize it?" Petal inquired, as Mila was giving it a curious sort of look, one that appeared to Petal as a sign of remembrance.
"No, not completely. It closely resembles the stamp my uncle used to use on his study papers and documents." Mila replied, narrowing his eyes in disgust. "That should be impossible though. He's locked away, held under tight security by the Atlisian military. He can't be here, doing this again."
"It seems different to me." said Petal.
"Does it? It's all starting to make more sense now. Your mentor mentioned a drug that turns people into Grimm, right? He said that something like that was supposed to be present in Mistral at the moment. It's not too far off from what my uncle was trying to accomplish. He wanted to make the perfect hunter, not a Huntsman, but something far more powerful. A person with a natural compatibility to the Grimm, he suspected that these people could be changed into something that he considered to be the next step in our evolution. He didn't see the Grimm as monsters, Petal, he saw them as opportunity and inspiration. This isn't any different. If anything, it's worse. This means that either he, or somebody using his research has moved to the next step." Mila ranted, growing frantic as he glared at the crate he was leaning on.
"You think it's true, then, the drug that changes people into Grimm?" she questioned.
"I don't know, maybe. I can't think how else this could be happening. A new species of Grimm out of nowhere, and Grimm that bleed and seem more aggressive than usual, to top it off. It can't be just a coincidence." he muttered.
Mila then started to pry on the wooden lid to rip it off, but was unable to break it free of the nails that held it in place. Petal stepped forward and as black lines ran along her body, she lifted her leg and brought it down on the corner of the crate, breaking a massive chunk free. After stepping back, Mila managed to get a good enough handle to lift it up and pry the top board from the box. Inside resided dozens of clear vials, all filled with a swirling sapphire liquid. A strong smell of ash hit Petal's nose, a smell that she recalled to be the same scent of the blue Grimms' blood.
"What is all of this?" she asked.
"Some sort of serum, most likely." Mila answered, removing one out of the box. He gave it a subtle shake and watched as the liquid inside turned darker, almost to the point of being black instead of blue.
"We should explore some of the other rooms." Petal stated, turning to head back to the exit.
Mila gave a nod in response and pocketed the vial as he followed behind Petal. Both of them continued into another room that surprisingly had furniture inside. Besides some desks and chairs, there was nothing else of interest. Another archway of stone led further into the cave, which both members of the team decided to follow. After a minute or two of walking, the walls around them ended, leaving them on a thin strip of gray rock that overlooked a massive lake below them. It seemed to faintly glow with a bluish tint, casting a slim amount of light throughout the room. Still, there were places that even Petal could barely make out, past the shoreline of the lake, and into the much darker recesses of the enormous chamber.
Petal began hearing groaning noises as they continued ever deeper, moving back into tight corridors and winding declines of rock and loose gravel. The noise itself was unsettling for her, and as they grew closer, and it consequently grew more and more present, she felt her courage slipping away with every step. Something was down here with them, something that she was not fond of meeting. Odors of ash and mildew and even traces of blood began to rise from the depths ahead, and despite Mila being beside her, she began to show her fear. Her body shook slightly and her eyes were wide with concern and anticipation for the worst thing imaginable to happen. As they reached another plane of flat stone, she noticed more desks, and even tables of what appeared to be lab equipment. There were elevated chairs, some of which were declined backwards so whoever occupied them would be lying down, and all of them were fixed with chains and cuffs.
Mila's hands clenched into fists, and his semblance seemed to activate, though Petal could not tell if it was intentional or not. His tightening grip on the glowstick caused it to shatter in his hand, and his blood began to drip to the ground, accompanied by shards of reflective glass. The room dimmed, and she saw that his eyes now glowed. On the desk was a lamp, burning dimly thanks to a small red crystal in the prongs atop it, giving the room substantial enough lighting to make it easy on Mila. Petal put a hand on his shoulder as her other hand passed him some bandages that she had kept in the pouch on her hip. It wasn't much, but she figured it would be enough for his slashed palm. He returned a smile and accepted the offer, tying it around his injured hand as she continued towards the desk.
"Some paperwork, it looks like." Petal stated, lifting up a folder and giving it a quick look over.
Most of it was diagrams of Grimm and their biology, or small excerpts of text that described various parts and functions of the variety of species shown on the pages. Near the end of the folder, she saw a paper that displayed a human and a faunus, both of which had finely written paragraphs next to them. As she scanned the words, her golden eyes widened in shock.
"Mila, you mentioned that your uncle thought that certain people had good compatibility with the Grimm, yeah?" she asked, drawing his attention.
"What of it?" he inquired, appearing closer to her side.
"What did you mean by that, 'good compatibility', I mean?" she asked him.
After a brief sigh, he lifted some of the papers himself. "I mean, that he wanted to find people like you and me. Grimm are all similar to various species of animals, so he suspected that those with animalistic similarities themselves would react better to his serums. I only ever found out about two other experiments of his, besides myself, of course. Both of them were humans with no sort of animalistic trait, be it their semblance or anything else. Both of them were killed within a few hours of being injected, according to the notes, at least. They were apparently left in such a state that they hardly resembled any other living creature in the world. I, however, who does have an animalistic similarity, was a somewhat more successful trial, though not a complete one."
"What do you have that makes you say that?" asked Petal.
"My semblance turns me into an animal, essentially. Scientists have always believed that our semblances are our truest selves, our soul manifested in a physical way. If mine pretty much turns me into a wild beast, that certainly must say a lot about my character. My uncle didn't have access to many faunus where we were, so he settled with me in most cases. I stayed alive, despite everything, so he began thinking that more like me would continue to show progress. While I never knew if he had tested on a faunus or not, I do know that in the notes I found late into our trials that he thought a faunus would yield the greatest results, as they are the closest beings to actual animals that we know of. Judging off of these, I'd say he was right. Whoever is behind this appears to have finished whatever it was my uncle was trying to accomplish, in some way, at least. Here," he said, handing her the paper. "The whole thing is an explanation of failed and successful tests. Subjects that have died, the results of the ones that have lived. They're studies, and most of which have been fruitful, it seems. I hate to say it, but some of these might be about those missing villagers."
"I know." Petal said, staring at the papers clutched in her hands. "We need to find out what happened to them."
"We need to leave, and destroy this place before we do." Mila stated, angrily.
"What if they're in here, further down, and alive?" asked Petal.
"That's a chance that's not worth taking, Petal. I'm sorry, but if this stuff escapes this place… No, it's not something that should even be considered. We have to tear this place down."
Petal grimaced and was about to argue her point but a loud, sloshing sound interrupted her. Mila and Petal turned quickly to stare in the direction of the intrusive noise, and both of them stepped back, recoiling in terror. A massive, smoky blob of what appeared to be oil or tar was gliding in through an archway of stone. Mila's eyes glowed bright red as Petal activated her own semblance. The two took several steps back towards the way they came in as the mass halted.
"What the hell is that?" Mila questioned, reaching for the guns on his hip.
"I-I don't know." Petal replied, nervously. "I've never seen anything like it before."
Her claws ignited into an icy mist as she stepped back again. The smoke-ridden object split in half suddenly, and wide gaping jaws of white, serrated teeth appeared along the seams. Elastic tendrils of the dark colored substance extended out from either side and formed enormous claws that dug into the stone beside it, cracking the floor, and causing the seams to spider across the surface before reaching Petal and Mila's location. The inside of the beast began to glow with a blue radiance, as if the black, oily flesh had a transparency to it. Both Petal and Mila were near their exit now, their hearts beating faster than ever as a disgusting, guttural groan filled the cavern.
"Go." Petal whispered.
Mila nodded and turned at once, though he was only able to get one foot out of the door before something wrapped around his other leg. Petal looked to see a black tendril creeping from the newly created cracks and she swiftly moved to cut it. Just as she raised her arm, something grasped her wrist and she was pulled from her feet in an instant. Before she could even react, Petal was thrown across the room. She flipped and landed with her feet against the wall, and buried her clawed hand into the stony surface to hold herself in place as she gazed up at the monster, which was now flinging Mila. She took aim with her remaining hand and fired a beam of hazy frost, piercing the tendril holding Mila's leg. As it separated, Mila was released and slid across the ground before catching his balance, but while that attack freed her partner, it also drew its attention onto herself.
Petal quickly swung herself to the right, avoiding a massive, sharpened tendril before leaping backwards off of the wall, over another attacking arm. She performed a cross-slash with both hands and severed the two outstretched limbs that had tried to finish her off, severing them from the body, and causing them to fall to the ground just before she landed. The limp tentacles of oil smoked severely for several seconds before vanishing completely, and she heard a gunshot ring out in the room. As Petal spun, Mila was standing with his gun, the smoking barrel of which was pointing at a slithering limb behind her. She slashed at it, cutting it free of the lump of dark liquid, before leaping backwards to create some distance between herself and the monster.
"Petal, we need to go!" Mila exclaimed.
"Then go! I'll be right behind you!" Petal replied, and despite the look of refusal that Mila flashed her way, he turned and made for the exit again.
Petal charged after him and lunged to slice through another tendril that was reaching for Mila as he escaped. She rolled on the other side and was shortly following a distance behind Mila as they retraced their steps to the exit. As they reached the thin bridge of stone that resided within the massive chamber housing the lake, Petal glanced back to see if they were at all safe yet. To her surprise, the creature was no longer there, but when she turned her head forward once more, she heard stone cracking above them. Her eyes swiftly darted up to see a black arm shooting from the ceiling and reaching for Mila. Just as Petal pushed herself to run faster in order to intercept the reaching limb, Mila dove and spun, his crimson eyes leaving glowing streaks behind as he rotated to face the tendril. His gun was drawn and the barrel was unfolded and extended to its maximum length. A massive beam of energy shot forth, piercing the ceiling, and causing a deafening screech of agony to fill the entire chamber. The sound echoed throughout the expansive amount of space, and the entire structure seemed to rumble from the destabilizing blast. Mila landed, rolled, and with Petal's help, was back on his feet.
"Go, now!" Petal ordered, shoving him ahead as she rushed behind him.
As they neared the exit, she both heard and felt the stone path in the previous chamber begin to crumble and fall, resulting in a horrible crash as the massive chunks of debris struck the water below it. Both of them didn't look back again, and hurried out into the sunlight of the outside world, panting, and shaking from head to toe as the fear induced adrenaline rushed through their terrified bodies. Mila hurried to a tree where he spun, rested his back against it, and drew his remaining weapon. Petal stumbled slightly as she hurried to his side, dropping to her hands and knees as her semblance and weapons deactivated. She turned her head and stared fearfully at the cave's gaping entrance, afraid of whatever that monstrosity was coming out to face them again.
The sounds of clicking as parts fell into place caused her to look up at Mila, whose second revolver was finishing its transformation. His eyes were still bright red, and his white features had turned to a dull gray, almost nearing the black it would become once his semblance had completely activated. His chest was heaving quickly and his breathing was short and shallow. The look on his face was a mixture of anger, fright, and a manic sort of shock as his shaking hand took aim at the mouth of the cavern.
"Don't!" Petal shouted, breathlessly.
"We can't leave that open." he said in reply, his tone a pitch higher from the fear that was clouding his judgment.
"The people might be in there! We can't—"
"Then they are lost, Petal!" he howled, interrupting her. "If we don't seal that off, the rest of the village will be next! Don't you understand that we can't face that! If we don't— Get off of me!" he shouted, as Petal had hurriedly lunged at him, trying to take his gun away.
There was a loud thud as his fist struck her in the face, powered by the full force of his active semblance, and his naturally larger size in comparison to herself. Her body crackled with a glowing yellow energy, and she was sent into a nearby tree, momentarily stunned as Mila took aim again. Black patterns ran along Petal's body as she moved to intercept him again. She dove and rolled with him before kicking him into another tree. His body obtained a smokey, black and red aura as he struck the hard surface, sending a zig-zagging crack up dozens of feet in the ancient wooden flora. Petal was on him in a second, holding her arm against his throat as her right hand was holding his left between them, forcing it to look towards the ground.
Petal's face had contorted in fury, partially driven by the absurd amounts of fear that was still causing her heart to pump hastily. Her black, normally sphere-shaped pupils were narrowed, vertical slits, and her fangs were bare for him to see. The tiger-like features along her body were as dark as ever and she felt as if she could push him easily through the massive trunk he was being held against.
"Drop the gun." she ordered.
"We can't let that thing live." Mila said.
"Drop. The. Gun." she repeated, more forcefully, and stopping between words to make sure they were clear and as threatening as she intended them to sound.
"You're making a mistake." Mila muttered, staring intently into her bright golden eyes.
In response, Petal pulled him slightly away from the tree by grabbing onto the collar of his shirt, and forced him into the trunk once more, causing the tree to split even worse than it originally had. The aura around Mila appeared once more, and seemed weaker than usual.
"I'll break that Aura. Then, I'll break you." she snarled. "Drop the weapon."
The look on his face was one of complete contempt and rebellion, but she heard the clattering of the weapons folding arms again, before clinking against the ground it soon fell on. Petal kicked it away with a light sweep of her foot and began stepping back, still keeping a hold on his collar.
"If they are still alive, I want to save them." she said.
"If we go in there, we will all die. You, me, Shimmer, and Rose, all of us will die to that thing. Is that what you want? Just so you can save some useless lives? Just so you can see that they're already dead, or would be better off that way?"
"Lives aren't useless. They're important." Petal replied.
"More important than ours? Even if they're already long gone? I thought you were smart, Petal. I thought you knew what it meant to make sacrifices. I thought you could handle making the decisions that needed to be made."
"I believed the same of you." Petal stated. "That thing could move through the walls of that cave. If we blow it shut, where does that leave us? It could slip through whatever obstacle you put there, and we won't be able to get back inside. You're essentially building a barricade to help defend the damn thing. I'm afraid too, but you need to think instead of giving into it. I know we can't beat that, so we will go back to the village, meet up with the others, and call for help from the council in Mistral. They can send real Huntsmen to take care of this. Seal the entrance, and they won't be able to do their job, understand?" she asked, shoving him back into the tree, and stepping away from him.
She picked up his gun and held it out for him to take it. As he reached for it, his face was full of guilt and contemplation as he rationalized what she had said. She pulled the weapon away slightly, bringing it just out of his reach, and glowered at him.
"You can question a lot about me, Mila. Question my decisions, question whether I can be a good enough leader for the three of you, question my character if you must, but never question whether I can make sacrifices if need be. I voluntarily gave up the peaceful life I could've had to do this. I have lost friends and family, and I have even left Cole behind in dangerous situations because I knew it was what needed to be done. I can make those choices, and I can do so easily. I know I act like an idiot in class, but this isn't school, and I'm not as soft as you seem to think I am."
"I don't think you're soft." he said, reaching for the gun again.
"Hmph." Petal scoffed, sneering, and allowing him to take the weapon from her. "Let's get back to the others and see how they did. It looks like it'll be dark soon and I don't want to be out here with that creature." she said, turning to make her way back to the village.
Mila quickly gave chase, sliding the gun back into his holster. As they made their way through the forest, the two remained quiet for some time, but Mila soon broke that silence with a quiet sigh.
"Petal, about back there…" he started, and Petal glanced over her shoulder to see his features had returned to normal. His eyes had darkened once more and his hair was slowly returning to its usual shade of white. "I'm sorry. I lost it for a second, and I'm sorry I hit you."
"Don't apologize. We both acted rashly." Petal replied.
"You didn't do anything." he said.
"I threatened you. We're friends, teammates, I shouldn't have done that. Cole always said I had a temper, and I have always had a hard time keeping it in check. My way to fix things is usually by forcing out a solution. Instead of working around a problem, I just recklessly leap into it and usually mess something up in the process. It's why he always had a hard time trusting me to be on my own." Petal said, softly.
Mila rubbed the back of his neck and was at a loss of words for a moment. Petal assumed that he still expected her to be angry, but she was never truly upset. It was just the only way she knew to get him to stop, though she did get carried away.
"I was afraid, and I did something stupid." she thought, silently, as she stared ahead, swatting branches and bushes out of her way.
"How do you handle yourself so well when you're afraid like that?" Mila questioned.
"Well?" she gasped, before laughing. "I face my fear by forcing myself to encounter it. I was so scared of that thing, I thought I was going to wet myself before passing out, but that would only serve to get us killed. Instead, I forced myself to attack it, and hopefully it was enough to buy you some time to get away." she explained.
"Your mentor, Cole, he told you to not let fear control you, even if you knew you were afraid." said Mila.
"Remember that, do you? Well, that's why I don't let it make my decisions for me. I do everything in my power to push past it, just like how I solve my problems. It's probably the most valuable lesson he could've imposed on me. If I hadn't been raised by him, I might have fallen apart in that cave."
"But you didn't."
"And neither did you." Petal said, glancing over at him. "You knew that thing was in the ceiling, and you countered it perfectly. If you hadn't done that, we both might be in that lake now, or we would've been captured by that monster. Either way, we would more than likely be dead."
Mila shook his head as she scratched the top of it. "Blaine used to do that too." Mila stated.
"Blaine?" asked Petal.
"The friend that wanted the tattoos." Mila said. "He was a dear friend to me, maybe even more than that, at times. Whenever I would blame myself for something, or when I would be too hard on myself, he would always argue with me about how I was innocent in the matter, or how I was being unreasonable. Those arguments would last hours, sometimes days, even. He was as stubborn as they came."
Petal smiled then, and even giggled slightly. "Well, that's sweet, but that's not what I'm doing here. You're completely at fault in this, I was simply admitting that I was also wrong in some way."
"But you said to not apologize. Doesn't that mean that you're not blaming me?" asked Mila.
To this, Petal chuckled louder. "Where do you get that from? I just didn't want to hear you say it, that's all. In fact, I put all of the blame on you. I'll even blame you for bringing us into that cave, and maybe I'll blame you for that monster showing up, and I will definitely be blaming the collapsed bridge on you, as that was one hundred percent your fault." Petal said.
"You're ridiculous." Mila stated, growing stoic again, though she did see a faint grin appear for a moment. "We nearly die one second, and now you're making jokes."
"I find that these are the best times to make jokes." said Petal. "It helps alleviate the situation a bit. It helps to make what just happened a little less real, even if it's just a moment's reprieve."
They continued chatting for the remaining journey back to the village, where they returned to the cabin they had been staying at. As they walked in through the door, Petal noticed the building was quiet, meaning that there was nobody home at the present. She didn't see Taiga, Everidge, Flint, or her other teammates, and after the place remained lifeless for nearly an hour, she began to grow worried. After several more minutes passed, and the sun was starting to set, the front door burst open and in came Everidge, two other villagers, and Taiga, who was closing the door behind them. Everidge and the others were carrying a long pallet, one that carried a body atop it.
"Taiga, clear the bed in my room, we need to make space for him." the old man ordered.
Taiga nodded and hurried to do as she was bid. Both Petal and Mila rose quickly to see that the body they were carrying was Flint's. His dark skin was glossy with sweat, and his chest was covered in lacerations that seeped crimdon fluids onto his body and clothes. His eyes were shut tight and he remained unresponsive, despite the rushed movements of the party transporting him. Petal quickly followed them into a room that was on the lower floor, the largest room in the house, and the one that Everidge himself used. Taiga already had the sheets and hides stripped from the bed, and was waiting to assist in lowering Flint onto the bare mattress. The group gently set him down and slid the makeshift lift out from under his unconscious body.
"What happened?" asked Petal, nearing them.
Everidge gave some orders to the other residents before turning to Petal once the room was clear, besides for her, him, and Taiga, who was soaking a towel in a bucket of water that resided in the corner.
"He was found by one of our hunters not long ago. He was about a mile from the village and was brought back here as soon as possible. As for what injured him, I'm afraid that I do not know." said the old man.
"Where's the rest of your team?" asked Taiga, nearing them and resting the towel on Flint's forehead.
"I don't know." said Petal. She then looked to Mila as he entered the room and he gave her a concerned look back. "Have you tried calling them yet?" she asked.
"None of them are picking up." Mila replied, leaning in the doorway.
"Then we need to go find them." Petal stated, sharply, turning away from the bed.
"Petal." groaned a voice, Flint's voice. It was raspy, weak, but understandable. She turned to see him, holding an arm out in her direction. "Stay here. It's dangerous out there." he muttered, losing strength as he talked. "Call for… Need to leave… Soon as possible." he murmured.
His hand then dropped and his eyes closed again. Petal gave him a sympathetic look before looking to Everidge. "Call the council, please." she asked him. "Help Flint while we're gone, and make sure the council knows what happened. Tell them we need as much help as possible right away."
"What about you?" Taiga inquired.
"I need to save my friends. If they're in danger, every second I stand here is one wasted." she answered, and then turned to Mila. "Are you coming?" she asked.
"I don't really have a choice in the matter. I have to help them, especially Shi. If they needed me and I didn't try to save them, I wouldn't be able to live with myself."
"Good. Then, we're heading out again."
"Stay safe." the old man croaked.
Petal flashed him a smile before following Mila out of the room, out of the village, and back into the surrounding, darkening forest.