Gamma's greatest issue was her laziness. At least, that's what Dr. Mendel told her. In her opinion, her biggest issue was combating boredom. It wasn't that she didn't like to move, it was that very little required her full attention or effort. The first time Dr. Mendel let them out of the lab she was excited, she connected her mind to the trees and grasses, wanting to see the world as far as she could. She was disappointed with her findings. She assumed then, that perhaps observing humans would be more fun. And whilst she at a time enjoyed watching humans building a tiny settlement half a mile from the lab, she found herself disappointed at how easy she and the others destroyed it.

When Dr. Mendel had them fight to determine ranks, she neither enjoyed winning nor hated losing, she had the greatest regeneration, so even pain was fleeting. To her, there was no point being scared or mad about losing a fight, if you were a failure you resigned yourself to death or fleeing. Beta's brother didn't realize this, and Alpha killed him. She found Alpha's anger tiresome, Beta's methodology stupid, Delta a sniveling, neurotic mess, and the triplets were insufferably naive at times.

Dr. Mendel was the absolute worst, and the humans who served him switched from cowards to brave idiots and then back to cowards. That's why she found Epsilon and his friends marginally interesting. He didn't have a cowardly mode it seemed, he was always a brave idiot. But even then she'd taken care of more than one brave idiot.

That's why she liked Bartholomew, he wasn't like the brave idiots, but he wasn't a useless coward. His golem magic struck a chord with her, magic that fought on the user's behalf. And he knew his limits, he had run and had hid and had scraped his way to escape the shades. And unlike the brave idiots who attacked her, or the cowards who were reduced to sniveling defeatists, he had attempted to win her over. Gamma turned her attention back to John and Nya, who stared daggers at her even as they slowly recovered from their hyper ventilations.

"Alright." Nya bolted forward, charging towards Gamma once more.

Gamma simply flicked a finger and uttered the word, "gánga" (go). Several vines and roots erupted from the ground and undergrowth, shooting forward to spear Nya, instead of leaping upwards, left, or right, like she would have earlier, Nya charged forward, dagger swinging to cut and deflect the green and brown missiles of plant matter. She inched ever closer to Gamma, who maintained her bored look.

Dodging and weaving the attacks took everything she had. Just keep at it Nya, you can do it. It's just like the endurance training with Venka and Seya… She tried to keep her movements minimal, dodging only as much as she needed so that she could avoid the next attack. But no matter how many dozens she dodged, dozens more would leave new cuts over her body. She noticed a gap in Gamma's attacks and capitalized on it, rushing in through the gap, and into coiled vines fashioned into a spear ready to gut her. She had no time to dodge, and so, readied her spell she had deliberated on.

Gamma smirked, preparing to shut Nya's mouth with magic. She was interrupted by a violent bang and a sharp, painful tearing sound. Gamma looked to John, who had aimed a long silver smoking barrel at her, and collapsed.

John furiously tore at a thin satchel, opening it he poured its contents, a specialized version of purple soldier powder, into the long silver barrell. He took out a scrub and began pushing as much of the powder in, as quickly as he possibly could. He took out an iron ball and dropped it in, pushing it back as far as he could with the scrub once more. But he wasn't fast enough, Gamma's body snapped into place rapidly, she rushed towards John, who aimed his gun haphazardly at her, missing as one of her vines grabbed him by the arm.

"Ouch… ouch ouch… what is that thing?" Gamma inspected the long metal tube with wood and iron and copper. "It's a weapon you can use without magic? The doctor would be extremely interested in this."

"No! You can't!" John scrambled for it but was pushed back with ease, panic overtaking his mind as recalled the conversation he had with Faris the first time the latter showcased the weapon, which he called a 'musket'.

"This…" John fell back on his butt as he inspected the fist shape hole put into the thick plate armor his friend Faris had displayed. Faris, who was wearing a thin tunic and loose fitting leggings smiled grimly as he cleaned the weapon which had spit out flames and iron.

"Yup, that's why I'm sort of hesitant to share this with anyone. If you gave this to 100 soldiers, sans the riders, they'd become the most powerful fighting force, and even then, a dragon without adequate protection who rushed into these weapons would be torn to mincemeat."

"The tides of war would be changed, we'd be able to defeat the golden horde in an instant with these weapons!" John was excited, then cross, he turned to Faris, inflamed. "How long have you known about how to make this weapon!?"

Faris held up his hand. "John, I would love to help us win that war, but, I cannot in good conscious release this weapon just yet."

"And why not?!" John asked with irritation.

"Imagine if you will , what would happen if you couldn't kill your enemy in one shot, say, they were a mage with an exceptional amount of saved energy in a crystal. Actually, no, let's pretend they're just a mage student, imagine how many shots a pearl initiate can block, you might think this would break through their defenses, and you'd be right, as long as the mage was within 50 paces. Any further and the mage can block up to 3 of those shots. And sure, the weapon can be made stronger, so that it can kill at a further distance. But then, what do you do when they figure out that all you need to do is splash the gun with water to render it inactive. Or what will happen when the enemy steals one and they begin to produce their own?"

John was silent for a bit before retorting, "we'd have a head start technologically, and we could destroy their research."

"And what do we do to the researcher, kill them and their family?"

"They knew what they signed up for making such weapons."

"Okay, now, bear with me in this hypothetical. Imagine if you will, a group of soldiers. Due to the fact they are equipped with guns there's no real use for armor anymore. And because it would take one or two shots to drop a mage at close enough distances, they probably wouldn't be afforded a mage unless really needed. A skilled enough mage could sneak in and infiltrate this group of soldiers, and kill them, because even if you now have the power to kill a mage. They don't have to directly see you to kill you. Now you have a mage with guns and magic, and they can sense you behind walls, they can enchant bullets to not miss, it's almost guaranteed that a skilled group of engineers and mages could probably create a gun capable of firing massive bullets through what had once been considered impenetrable walls." John looked back again at the steel plate with the hole in it. Faris continued, "John, I hesitated to even make the first one I ever made, because this, this isn't a sword, or a spear, or a bow and arrow, anyone can use this weapon, the amount of time required to shoot well with this weapon is stupidly short compared to the mastery required for the longbow, for the sword, for the shield. And even then, this weapon is more likely than any of those other weapons to kill its opponent. If an enemy gets their hands on this, all bets are off."

"Okay, so why did you show it to me?" John crossed his arms.

"I'm giving it to you."

"WHAT?!"

"Look, you and the others are planning to become Knight Rangers right? You'll need some secret weapons matching your habits. I've made something for Vern, Cynthia, and Manny, I decided I could trust you with this." Faris shrugged, "You're a talented young knight, and I'd want you guys to have at least somewhat of a fighting chance if a mage attacked you."

"You trust me with it?" John asked, reverently.

"Yes, yes I do." Faris grinned, "Now, come on, let me teach you how it's used…"

"So, you aim the open end like this…" Gamma pointed the musket at John's forehead. "...and then you… what do you do? Shake it, hit it?"

John kept the panic from overriding his consciousness and stared down the muzzle with angry indignation. "You aim the opening at your head then shake your butt!" Gamma smirked at his bravado and mockingly followed his instructions.

"You mean like this?" She laughed.

"Yeah, like that!" Nya screamed as a violet flame erupted from her hands and engulfed Gamma. Gamma's hold on the vines slackened enough for John to rip himself free. As he did Nya grabbed him and helped him along as the two staggered out of the clearing.

"Wait!" He screamed, "What about the g-"

"We can't go back for that now! We need to run!" Nya yelled back as she led the way.

Gamma observed herself, the heat was great indeed, but it wasn't actually burning her in the normal sense. "You can't even cast spells right…" She extended her hands and shot the vines and roots towards the two, only to watch in confusion, then pain, as they set on fire. It was the first time she'd been through such pain. She turned to glare at the two, rushing forward to kill them and end the spell, when the long metal barrelled weapon in her hand exploded, knocking her down and breaking more of her concentration. As she watched the two of them escape, she screamed out…

"That… that was a smart idea you had there John…" Nya said, sighing in exhaustion. The two teens ran through the forest, and soon Gamma's screams were drowned out by the roar of the forest still on fire around them. John followed Nya's lead, and kept his head down.

"That was… smart on you too, sharing… pain was it?" John slowed and coughed as a bit of smoke entered his lungs, but he kept running. John had proposed to Nya to prepare a spell that only targeted plants, Gamma would then exhaust herself trying to heal the plants. Nya then amended the plan, including that Gamma would be forced to share the pain with the plants as they set on fire. The only reason their plan worked was through Protector of Life Mages and their research into plants and animals. While trees and grass don't experience life the way they or animals might, they still had senses in some way, and had an alarm system of some sort when approached with hostile and violent stimuli. For someone like Gamma, the countless plants at her disposal became her downfall.

"Yeah… we… we've got to keep running through…" Nya wanted to ask about the weapon John had used, she recognised something similar, albeit much larger, belonging to Faris, that he used against Yacob and his squad in what felt like an eternity ago. "The… that weapon, what was -"

They were interrupted by an avalanche of burnt leaves, roots, branches, and vines that erupted from beneath and in front of them, riding this avalanche was a wild looking Gamma. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her nose was running, her hair was frazzled and darkened from places it had been burned, and in a few spots she was hairless. Nya felt weak in her knees, they had put everything they could into attacking her and fighting, but still, she was there. Nya ran questions through her head, was it her lack of magic capacity? Did she mistaken her spell? Did she not put enough strength and speed into her attacks? Or was it that she was just weak. She didn't notice as John tried to shake her to make her regain her senses, and didn't notice as Gamma rose up. Gamma wordlessly screamed at the two of them, and raised her left arm, in her clenched fist lay the remains of John's weapon, the slag twisted into a smoldering makeshift spear.

"YOU FORGOT THISSS!" Gamma hissed as she threw the weapon with all her might at Nya. It pierced the air and hurtled towards the teen with deadly precision.

Nya shut her eyes and waited for the sharp pain. She screamed out as it pierced her arm, opening her eyes she turned pale. The spear had been aimed at her chest, it shouldn't have missed. Trembling, Nya looked into John's eyes as the latter began bleeding from the mouth. The spear had punctured his chest, and perhaps through luck, it had caught against his ribs and slowed down enough to miss Nya's own heart. "J-JOHN!" Nya screamed. John tried to say something but would cough up blood every time he opened his mouth. With everything she had Nya pushed him off her to help him lay down. She ignored her own bleeding and tearing, burning feeling in her shoulder as she screamed at John. "No! Stay with me! You want to be a strong Knight Ranger right?! You want to explore the kingdom! You wanted that rematch with me! You always keep your promises! Right?! You told me! You told me if Morgan started courting me you'd do the same for Cynthia right?! Come on! STAY WITH ME!" She screamed at him, putting her hand to his chest and doing as rudimentary a healing as she could. She could feel his heartbeat weakening, and wished she had paid more attention when Katya shared what she knew of healing. John's chest stopped heaving and his muscles spasmed once, then twice, before ceasing, John's body grew ice cold as the foul smell of death filled the air.

Gamma cackled maliciously, extending the dead plant matter to slam Nya into the ground. Nya screamed in protest, hurling obscenities Gamma's way, but the green haired girl simply walked over, stabbing the spear into John for good measure, seeing his body unmoving despite the attack left Nya speechless. Gamma turned towards Nya, and Nya shivered as she looked at the manic hatred plastered on her face.

"You know, maybe I was wrong." Gamma muttered, bringing the spear down of John's corpse. Nya screamed out a protest.

"Stop! Stop! Please!"

Gamma ignored her protest, "maybe there is merit to actually trying." She smirked as she brought the spear down again. "I mean, look," she bared her teeth, "you succeeded in pissing me off!" She whirled around and slammed the spear into Nya's injured arm. Nya screamed as her forearm shattered. "Now that, that's a massive accomplishment." Nya trembled, struggling against the weight of the dead plants which crushed her under their weight. "And… me trying right now… it's surprisingly fun…" She brought her spear down on John's body again, this time Nya elicited no response. "Oh, did I break her?" Gamma murmured. She raised her hand, lifting some of the plants. Nya gasped for air, her lungs no longer crushed by sheer weight. "Alright then." Gamma picked up the spear, and aimed at Nya's head. "Good riddan-"

A pillar of stone ripped through the plants, crushing Gamma's jaw and launching her a few dozen feet into the air. Instead of landing on her own the plants caught her, the pillar of stone rose in the air before coiling midair like a snake and diving down to crush Gamma. The plants wrapped around the stone. Half the vines froze, the other half burned away fully, and the rock snake, now freed from the grassy embrace, crashed into Gamma. "Screw you." Bartholomew threw out more crystals until an army of

Golems rushed towards Gamma.

"Ah! You! The funny one! You lost some weight! Too bad!" She laughed, "Your unique brand of cowardice isn't exciting anymore to me s-" She was interrupted by a flash of green as Verdant Dancer rushed past her, slicing her back with the green blade. She screamed in pain and panicked as her wound didn't heal.

"I don't give an Urgal's ass over your regard for me you feckless bitch!" Bartholomew growled. The golems struck at Gamma with reckless abandon, cutting and burning and blasting the enhanced being. Bartholomew moved on a golem, who picked up Nya and John, he commanded the golem to flee. As he shook Nya she grabbed his arm hard enough to almost break it. Despite the pain he stared her in his eyes. Nya's eyes were inflamed, but eventually they softened as tears began to fall down.

"I… John…" She blubbered.

Bartholomew's own lips trembled. "I know… we have to get help." He looked behind him just in time to see Gamma crush one of the rock snakes. He ordered the Verdant dancer to rush back towards him, it had the magic dampening sword at the moment, and it was their best defense at the moment.

Nya held back the majority of her tears as the golem carrying them silently ran through the forest. Eventually it pulled out of the burning forest and rushed towards the fortification, bulldozing through any enemies in its path. Bartholomew glanced at his mirror, Gamma was chasing after his trail, but was stopped by a blast of energy. He gulped as the mirror turned to face Marigold. "Win, you've got to…"

Marigold nursed her shoulder. The blue scaled boy's lightning blasts marred her arm with lichtenberg scarring that resembled the gnarled roots of an old tree, or perhaps the branch-like outcropping of frost on a window, almost resembling the fractal-like shapes of snowflakes. She winced as she looked up at the Surdan, who smiled lightly as he regarded their newest contender.

"Geez Gamma, you look worse for wear, what, do you mean to tell me a weak mage and a muggle can take out one of you… enhanced be~~ings?" He drew out the last word with a sarcastic, nasally twang.

"Shut up! The boy took me by surprise and attacked me with a weird metal tube that shot out stones at high speed!"

"Did they?" Callan pondered for a moment before turning to Marigold. "Pity, looks like your friend Faris is dead."

"That's a lie…" Marigold muttered. "Stenr risa, jierda iet fjandi!" (Stone rise, hit my enemies) Large boulders rushed up, hurtling towards the two teens, who dodged the Triple's magic with ease.

Callan charged forward, "You-" and fell flat on the floor as one of the stones launched towards him made an abrupt u-turn, striking him from the back of the head, wincing but still alive, he dodged the next one and smacked the third, crushing it.

Gamma wasn't so lucky, she was already exhausted and could do nothing as the first stone tore through her sides, and the third blasted through her chest, even as she collapsed her body quickly nit itself back together. Marigold scowled and raised her hands, gemstone glowing brightly she forced the ground beneath the two to rise up, striking them from below, whilst at the same time gathering the flames of the forest fire around them to engulf Callan and Gamma in an avalanche of flames, dirt, and dead plant matter.

As the deluge of dirt drew close Callan's skin began to glow bright blue as electricity began to spark out of him. Bringing his hands together the air began to swirl towards his palms and a small flame spurted into existence, the fire so hot it gleamed in a blue light. As the air continued to gather together the jet like flame grew in size and power and his lightning came to mix with his flame, the smell of burning wood, skin, and hair mixing with ozone. "ISLINGR!" (Light-Bringer).

The lightning fueled flames grew so hot that the air and land boiled and melted into slag, then blue changed to violet, then to nothingness as a rush of energy blasted out, piercing a hole through the avalanche like a hot knife through butter.

Marigold prepared her wards, "Hvass skalpr!" (Sharp Shell). A clear wall like structure with a pointed end, like a pyramid with it's point facing outwards, formed, protecting Marigold as the blast launched out. The blast struck the center of the pyramid then split and glanced sideways, the ground melting into lava-like molten slag. The wall shattered, and with it Marigold's crystal. Just in that instant, just as the blast reached her almost instantly, the attack completed.

Gamma was collapsed on the ground, the high heat and stolen oxygen caused body to be scorched, inside and out, and for her lungs to collapse in strain, she was barely able to begin healing, almost too weak to continue. She stared daggers at Callan as he gasped, released from his spell. Muscles straining from the effort Callan smirked, opening his eyes and looking at Marigold's burnt skin and broken crystal. "Looks like it's over." He charged forward, green staff twirling in the air.

Marigold's head snapped at an odd angle when the staff struck her and she collapsed on the ground. Before her body hit the ground her own staff swung, striking Callan with enough force to snap her metal staff and break his arm and left ribs, causing him to drop his staff.

"Fuck!" Callan shouted. To his horror Marigold arose, like a puppet on strings. The place he struck was bright red, and to his growing foreboding he realized it wasn't just the blood that dyed her head scarlet, her hair was an even deeper red, as were here irises. And her skin, which had before been a healthy peach with slight pink undertones, now took on a deathly pallor, skin so pale it looked like her veins were visible.

Marigold stared at them, some blood dripping down her lip from the impact of the attack, her body quickly righting itself and popping back to normal with a sickening crunch, she smirked, muttering, "Boetk Istalri!" (Broad fire)...

"Regardless of who you are, you have been extremely helpful to our war effort!" A captain saluted Faris, who was resting with a squadron of Ceunon loyalist soldiers. He waived his hand dismissively.

"I did no such thing. I simply did what any citizen of the crown would do. And rather, my admiration goes out to the brave soldiers of Ceunon, who are so willing to lay down their lives for it's lady and for the crown."

The knight grinned at his words. "Yes! Haha! You are both a true warrior and a man of integrity who understands our plight! Those dirty rebels could never break our morale." He guffawed loudly, causing the exhausted soldiers around him to groan, Faris simply rolled his eyes under his helmet. His friends amongst the knight apprentices stifled chuckles. He smiled at them underneath his helmet.

He had run into Cynthia, Vern, and Manny, who with Surmon and an assortment of mages and soldiers were bunkered down fighting what seemed to be a never ending stream of rebels. After securing Tamera and the other horses, he ambushed the rebels with violent illusions, causing them to turn on each other, and in the chaos, he dispatched of the rebel squad's leader and helped hamper their forces while his friends restarted the offensive.

It was the knight apprentices who recognized their team mate's fighting style first. They had been surprised to see Faris so soon, especially after his life threatening injury. Faris was taller and healthier than he had been before, surpassing Cynthia and even Vern in height, the only ones he was shorter than amongst his large group of friends were Morgan, Nya, and Johnathan. After they made it into the fortress they had been busy aiding the soldiers in holding the walls. At the moment they were resting from a particularly vicious siege attempt. A battering ram with shields attached in overlapping layers to the top of it had been wheeled down the battlefield, due to the way the shields sloped boiling oil did not fall on the soldiers underneath the shields. They almost broke down the walls, but eventually the kingdom mages were able to break through the rebels' mental defenses and slay the squad manning the battering ram. Afterwords, knights and soldiers had been sent out to face the scattered troops. The battle followed this ebb and flow, growing wilder each time the rebels were pushed back.

Faris got back up to overlook the battle field just as a golem carrying three of his friends tearing out of the burning forrest, followed by a massive flash of light and heat vaporized a chunk of the forest…

Bartholomew's golem had just barreled through some rebels trying to block their movements when a flash of light and heat followed by a blast of hot air knocked them from the golem. Many of the rebel and loyalist soldiers had been bowled over, blinded, or killed by the blast, the ones who survived relatively unscathed rose and turned to fight each other again. A few rebels, noticing the loyalist regalia on John's bloody armor, turned to charge towards the group of teens. Bartholomew got up quickly, turning to his large golem, the heat had completely dried out the golem, causing it to crumble. He turned to the Verdant Dancer, the heat had caused it to wither. Groaning, he rushed over, grabbing the green sword and turning to face the men attacking him. Barely in time to block a sloppy thrust with a pitch fork, he tumbled out of the way of a sideways cut into his gut. Squirming in the ground like a panicking worm he barely avoided a thrust to his head. The rebels laughed as he squirmed, lifting their weapons to bring it down on him.

The lead rebel's head went flying, the others panicked as the leader's body hit the floor, their goal of gutting Bartholomew forgotten. Bartholomew turned to see Nya, her eyes inflamed as she stared daggers at the rebels, bloody broad sword in hand. Her right arm lay limp to the side, her midriff, exposed from where her armor and clothing had been damaged and destroyed by Gamma's vines and attacks, was bruised and cut, the bit of blood that had seeped out was dry and blackened. The way she leaned on one leg, the other barely touching the floor betrayed how bad a shape she was in over all. But the fierce look in her eyes and the snarl on her bruised face intimidated the rebels, who began to tumble backwards. Nya hobbled towards them, knuckles white from how hard she gripped the blade. She opened her mouth.

"Andask." (Die)

They clutched their chests, collapsing unto the ground. Nya likewise collapsed, her stamina finally spent. Bartholomew caught her, then groaned at her heaviness. He felt her slip from his hand, only to have another, stronger pair of arms gently help him let her down. As her head rested on the floor he saw a stream of silver energy suffuse into her body, causing her to breath smoother. Bartholomew looked up to see Faris, looking at his friends with deep concern and concentration.

"Took you too long…"

Afterword:

I hope you enjoyed the chapter, I also hope at least some of you shed a tear along side me with respect to John.