Lily's Camp
The campsite was a mess.
When the girls woke up, they discovered something had raided their camp overnight. The firewood was scattered, most of the supplies were either missing or broken, and the entire campground was in a state of disarray.
"What could have done this?" Lily asked in astonishment. She wanted to blame Meiko's camp for such an attack, but something told her that wasn't right. It must have been some kind of animal.
"Hey, come look at this!" Gumi called from the side of the tent. Lily, Tei, Yuki, Maika, and kokone made haste to join her and see what she referred to.
"Oh my Lola..."
Across the side of the tent were large scratch marks from what seemed to be a claw. A wild animal must have tried to break in. Either that, or it was trying to give them some kind of warning. Either way, the marks were a bad omen.
"Where did these come from?" asked a very concerned Maika.
Before any further speculation could be made, Lily noticed the tracks on the ground. She drew everyone's attention to them, and made note that they greatly resembled the pawprints she and kokone had seen on the first day. "A wild cat..." she muttered to herself.
"A wild cat? I knew one of those would try to break in!" Tei said in agitation.
"What do we do? What if it comes back?" kokone shuddered.
"It's not going to come back. I know a thing or two about hunting. I'd say this pesky feline better say its prayers."
Tei hurried back into the tent, while the others watched her go. As she threw things around from the inside, the outsiders could hear phrases such as "Where is it? Why is this here? Where did I put that darn thing?" Eventually, she gave a "Aha! Here it is!" then emerged from the tent with her desired item in hand.
"T-Tei! Don't you think that's a little... excessive?" kokone hid behind Lily at the sight of Tei's large blade.
"This is just a straight butcher knife," Tei explained. "It's far less lethal than most hunting tools. Unless I'm the one carrying it."
Tei held her knife in the sunlight for all to see. The silvery blade glistened as Tei's pale hand gripped the black handle. She did not plan on taking any prisoners. Anything that attacked her camp would surely pay the price.
"Well, leader," Tei continued. "We gonna go catch this cat or what?"
"Y-yeah, we should. It might strike again," Lily said, nervously backing away from the blade.
"Good. You're with me," Tei stepped closer to Lily, taking charge of the situation. Lily gulped and nodded obediently.
"I thought you worked best alone," Maika put her hands on her hips.
"I do, but I can't let Lily out of my sights. You saw her quivering at my story last night."
Lily blushed with embarrassment. She hoped nobody would notice how terrified she actually was. Maybe Tei made a better leader than her. The knife-wielding girl did not back down from giving instructions.
After minimal further discussion, the group split off to go wild cat hunting. Gumi went with Maika and kokone went with Yuki, but the latter two stayed as close to the campsite as they possibly could. On the way out, Lily picked up the first large stick she came across. Tei used her knife to sharpen it and made a very sharp weapon out of a simple twig.
Armed with knife and stick, Lily and Tei ventured out into the forest to seek out the wild cat that attacked them.
Meiko's Camp
Merli stared up at the sky as she let her body float over the water. Before sunrise, she and Xin Hua set out to visit the waterhole. While they had plenty of clean water at camp, they wanted to take some time for themselves and enjoy a little swim. Though they were lacking in productivity with Meiko and Yanhe running the show, they at least took the time to enjoy themselves.
"It's nice out, isn't it?" Xin Hua asked as she dove through the water like a fish.
"Yes, it is now, but I'm getting a bad gut feeling," Merli let her legs sink beneath the water and floated upright. "I think it's going to storm tonight."
"What? Can you predict the weather now?" Xin Hua giggled and playfully splashed Merli, who giggled in return.
"Not really, I just have really good intuition," Merli splashed Xin Hua back, this time more aggressively. This meant war, and resulted in a playful splash battle.
On the shore, Rin crept out from within the trees to watch the girls swim. She chuckled to herself and sat on a large rock, watching the water war unfold. She placed her bets on Merli, but the fight reached a stalemate when the two swimmers noticed Rin.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" asked Merli.
"You think I wanna be alone back there with the two bossy women? I'd rather stick around for whatever you two are doing."
"Care to join us, then?" Xin Hua asked, happy to have another friend nearby.
"No thanks. I'd rather stay up here where it's dry," Rin stretched out her arms and legs on the rock, making herself comfortable. She did not care to swim like the others, she only wanted to relax after a tiresome day and night.
Without a word, Merli and Xin Hua looked at one another knowingly. They had the same idea, and a diabolical grin that worked its way to Merli's face showed that they were on the same page. Merli nodded, then turned over to Rin.
"Okay, if that's how you want it to be."
In that instant, Rin lost control of her body and floated up into the air. When she realized what was going on, her blue eyes widened and she gasped out loud.
"What? What are you doing? Hey! Put me down!"
Using her magic, Merli hovered the struggling Rin over the waterhole, causing the young blonde to shriek.
"No, no! Put me down! Stop it!"
"As you wish."
Merli released Rin, who gave a yelp as she fell into the water. Her impact gave a large splash, and she flailed her arms to get herself floating. Once she had herself afloat, she growled at the fairy.
"That was so uncool."
"You come into our territory, you face the consequences. Get her!" Merli declared. With that signal, she and Xin Hua began to viciously splash Rin, who desperately tried to splash back. After a while, she started to chuckle and enjoy the fun, too.
Lily's Camp
Lily dragged her large stick across the ground as she walked beside Tei, both of them on high alert. They scanned the trees, the bushes, and everything but the path in front of them for any wild animals or attackers. Occasionally, they would look down to see if they could find any footprints, but they had yet to have any luck. Whatever lurked out there must have been good at covering its tracks.
The skies overhead were growing ever more cloudy as the day progressed. As the afternoon approached, the sun started to hide behind the puffs of gray that floated in the formerly blue sky. While the day did not darken much, an unseasonable chill blew through the air. Lily made sure to check the forecast for the week before beginning the adventure, so a storm seemed out of the ordinary.
"Tei?" Lily asked her partner as she walked. "Do you think whatever attacked us has a consciousness? Like, do they know about the sanctity of life?"
"That's quite a question to drop on me right now, Lily," Tei answered without putting her guard down. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, I'm just wondering what would motivate it to attack us. Is it just an animal that only knows how to kill, or is it aware that what it's doing is wrong? Why would it attack us if we're not doing anything to it?"
Tei went quiet for a moment, then gave a semi-thought out answer.
"I suppose in nature, there is no right or wrong. Only survival. This creature likely wants food, and most animals live on other living things."
"Why would it destroy our supplies, then? It's clearly out to attack us just for the sake of it."
"Well, that goes back to my answer. In nature, there is no right or wrong. To this thing, whatever it is, all this might just be a game. It just wants to mess with us for sport. Would you say humans are any different?"
"Of course we are! We don't just kill for the heck of it."
"Are you sure? There are plenty of people who would gladly kill if given the chance. To some, it's a thrill," Tei held her knife closer to her chest. "When our species does the same, who are we to judge this animal? That is, if it even is an animal."
"What if it's a person?"
Tei smiled. "Then my answer applies to it, as well."
Lily did not get time to give a response, since as soon as Tei said these words, she stepped into something dangerous and unexpected.
"Ah!"
Lily had walked into a rope trap someone had set up for them. She was yanked up by the feet and hung upside down from a nearby tree. Tei staggered back, almost equally as surprised as Lily.
"Tei, help! Get me down! HELP!"
"That's strange," Tei observed the trap that caught Lily. "If this isn't the other camp playing tricks on us, whatever we're hunting is smart enough to set traps."
"Yeah, yeah, I figured that out! Now get me down from here!"
Luckily, the branch holding Lily did not sit too high above the ground. Tei was able to reach high enough to cut the rope that held her friend, but its thickness proved challenging even for her knife. After a heavy cut, the rope released Lily and sent her headfirst into the ground.
"Ow!" Lily said after making contact with the dirt. "Thanks..."
Tei helped Lily to her feet, then dusted her off. Lily felt a bit disoriented, a usual response to having been hung upside down.
"You okay?" asked Tei, checking Lily for any bruises.
"Yeah, just a little dizzy. And my head hurts."
After collecting themselves, the two girls stepped back and looked all around them. They gazed in separate directions, making sure their eyes did not miss a spot. They clutched their respective weapons in their hands, ready to use them as soon as something came charging.
"You know what this means, don't you?" Tei pressed her back up against Lily's.
"What?" Lily returned, still looking all around her.
"We may be the ones being hunted. It isn't safe out here," Tei said back in a serious voice. Lily trembled at such a statement, but tried to keep her cool. She was the leader, after all. She needed to stay composed for the sake of her campmates.
"What do you suppose we do, then?"
"We need to get back and warn the others. We have to build a defense for our campgrounds."
Lily nodded. Whatever they were hunting was smart and out to get them. They could not let it catch them unprepared. Knowing what they needed to do, Lily and Tei hurried back to camp. They had some work that needed to be done.
Meiko's Camp
"Come on, Rin! You can do better than that!" Yanhe chided her teammate.
"I'm not good at catching, okay? I'm much better at throwing things!"
Rin picked up the stray rock and lifted it over her head. She tossed it over to Meiko, but Merli caught it mid-flight using her levitation powers.
"Hey! That's cheating!"
"You know the rules, Merli," Meiko scolded the fairy. "Even though we're teammates, that's gonna be a penalty for us."
After a boring day, the campers decided to play a game of "Rock Ball" to lighten things up. Xin Hua opted to keep score, not having much interest in playing the game. Currently, the M Team was leading by one point. The teams were split between Meiko and Merli on the M Team, and Rin and Yanhe on the RY Team. Everyone figured Meiko and Yanhe would be too powerful as one team, so they divided them up.
Xin Hua marked the score down on a piece of notebook paper, but had trouble keeping up, since the skies were darkening above her and causing a bit of concern. "It's not supposed to rain today." she thought, but nobody else seemed to notice the weather. They were too invested in their intense game of rock throwing.
In the next round, Merli chucked the rock a little too far, sending it further into the forest. Someone needed to go and retrieve it.
"I got it, I got it!" Rin declared and took off running after the rock.
Stepping over a few overgrown plants and twigs, Rin made her way over to the rock. They had searched through countless stones to find one perfect for throwing, they were not about to lose it. Crunching fallen leaves beneath her white shoe, Rin maneuvered over to the rock and moved to pick it up.
"There it is."
Rin reached over and lifted the stone from the ground, but as soon as she did, she noticed something unusual. Beside where the rock had landed, a small imprint in the mud became visible. Rin squinted her eyes and moved her head closer to get a better look. It almost seemed paw-shaped. Like some kind of animal's footprint.
"Did the rock make that? Hmmm," Rin nervously looked back to her campsite.
"Hey, what's taking so long? We got a game to continue!" Merli called over to the young blonde.
Rin quickly perished the thought of the pawprint and turned back to her friends. "I got it! Let's keep playing!" She ran back to continue the game, completely disregarding whatever warning this imprint intended to give.
Lily's Camp
"There. I think I got it." Yuki tinkered with the tent, finally stationing it exactly where she wanted it.
Lily, Gumi, Maika, Tei, and kokone watched from the ground as Yuki worked in the high-up branches of a tree. She had strategically placed their tent on a series of interconnected branches that allowed it to sit upright far above the ground.
"Great work, Yuki! That wild cat will never get us now!" Gumi commended the kid.
"Are you sure this is safe? We're not going to fall out of the tree or anything?" asked Maika.
"Nope, it's completely stable!" Yuki said from up top. "As long as nothing shakes the tree or anything like that."
Yuki climbed down from a rope hanging from a branch. She assured the others they would need to pull the rope up overnight to keep the attacker from coming in, but their new security measures were sure to keep them safe.
"Do you really think the attacker is human? If so, it could just be Meiko or someone from her group," Maika continued to question the situation.
"Do you think an animal would be able to set a trap like the one that caught me?" Lily answered.
"Don't underestimate the animals. I remember this one badger that would always steal my carrots, no matter where I'd put them!" Gumi argued.
"You sure it wasn't Gachapoid?"
"Regardless, no matter what's out there, we're ready for it. There's no way it'll penetrate our forces this time," Tei brandished her knife for all to see. Whatever came overnight would be no match for her. Or so she thought.
As dark clouds moved inward, the campers thought it best to spend the rest of the day in their treehouse tent. Rain began to come down, so each of them climbed the rope and hurried inside to stay dry. They made sure to pull the rope in after them to prevent any outsiders from climbing in.
"I thought you said it wasn't going to rain for five days!" Tei glared at Lily.
"Guess the forecast was wrong. What else is new?"
While the six campers stayed dry and the storm increased in intensity, there was little doubt among them that something sinister lurked in the forest. Could the surprise storm have just been a bad weather prediction, or was there a greater force at large? Maybe the forest actually had a curse.