Ch. 5 – Trial By Fire



SHING! SHING! SHING!

Dante cried out as he leaped to the side, landing on a fallen log.

Behind him, where he had been standing moments before, several large, razor-tipped feathers were embedded in the ground.

A shadow passed overhead, and Dante threw himself out of the way before a bolder smashed the log.

Only a few minutes had passed since Matuu and Guntur started their attack, and it had all been a blur from Dante’s perspective.

He remembered Doncath yelling at the refugees to run for the ruins as he and Garrus launched themselves into battle. Kibou had darted from his side as chaos rained down upon them. A few refugees had remained behind to help the bear and griffin fight.

Dante had almost immediately been thrown to one side as a bolt of energy hit him.

It hurt a lot.

In the short time since then, he’d run, tripped, and crawled in random directions as he tried to figure out where everyone was.

Another shadow passed over Dante, and he looked up in time to see a massive, purple gorilla-like creature glaring down at him.

Frozen with fear, all Dante could only watch as the beast reached down to grab him.

FWOOSH!!!

Bright blue flames erupted from behind the gorilla. It howled in pain and hopped away, clutching its burning backside.

Dante blinked, and a familiar green muzzle obscured his vision. “Kibou?”

The therivorum yipped happily and licked his face.

“Yeah, I’m glad to see you too,” Dante said, wiping his face off and finally getting a proper look at their surroundings.

They weren’t too far from the path; he could see a small knot of refugees fighting off the enemy forces from all sides and above. Smaller groups were fighting here and there among the trees and in the air.

And right in the middle of it all, Doncath and Guntur were trading blows; the bear’s claws were parrying swings from the club before it could hit him.

It wasn’t like the fights Dante remembered from cartoons he had watched. Utter chaos was prevalent here, things happening almost too fast for his eyes to see.

He looked down at the orb, which he’d somehow managed to keep hold of during this ordeal.

Prospero hadn’t told him how to use it, and right then, he wasn’t receiving any flashes of inspiration.

Instead, he slipped it into a pocket in his tunic before opening the satchel. “There has to be something in here we can use.”

Dante rummaged around until he felt something. He pulled out a glass bottle filled with a thick red potion. There wasn’t a label or anything that explained its use.

Kibou suddenly growled, and Dante looked up just in time to see a rhinoceros-like creature charging at them through the brush.

Dante flung the bottle before he even realized what he was doing.

It broke against the rhino creature’s head, covering its eyes in the red substance. Bellowing madly, it swerved to the side and crashed at full force into a large rock.

SMASH!!!

The rock was split right down the middle as the rhino creature fell on its side, knocked out cold.

Dante released the breath he had been holding. “Okay, that worked.”

He returned to the bag, pulling out a small, light yellow crystal.

Figuring it was better than nothing, Dante began to skirt along the edge of the battle, Kibou keeping right behind him.

Shadows descended upon them, and Dante dived to the ground as something sliced through the air.

He saw a swarm of enormous, bee-like creatures circling overhead. One moved to dive at them but was forced back as Kibou breathed more blue fire.

Remembering the crystal in his hand, Dante flung it into the air.

While he hadn’t been aiming, the crystal flew into the path of Kibou’s fire breath. It began to shake and glow, little cracks appearing around it until –

BANG!!!

A brilliant flash of light erupted, nearly blinding Dante and stunned the bees. They buzzed feebly as they fell to the ground around him.

“That was… intense,” Dante said, carefully stepping around the bees.

Once he was clear of them, he reached back into the satchel and pulled out another crystal – a blue one this time.

Kibou got his attention by yipping, jumping up and down as he looked at the crystal.

“You want this?” Dante asked, holding it up.

A roar filled the air as the purple gorilla from before charged at them, clearly wanting payback for being set on fire.

Kibou quickly jumped up and snatched the crystal in his teeth before swallowing it.

Nothing appeared to happen for a moment, and then the therivorum opened its mouth as a giant fireball shot out and hit the gorilla in the chest.

The gorilla screamed in terror as it was sent flying in a high arch over into the far distance.

“Way to go, Kibou!” Dante said, unable to suppress a laugh.

“Look out!”

The shout had come from Dante’s left. He turned just in time to see a green blur coming at him.

It hit him in the chest and pushed him back right before a large rock flew out of the sky and landed where he had been standing.

Shaken from yet another close brush with his demise, Dante looked to see the young griffin from before lying on his chest. “Thanks.”

“Thank me later,” the griffin said, scrambling to his feet, “it isn’t safe here!”

Another large rock landed close to them.

Dante was up instantly, he and Kibou followed the griffin as they darted for cover.

After a short dash through the battlefield, the three found refuge in the space between two large stone blocks leaning against each other.

Once he had his breath back, Dante spoke. “Again, thanks for that.”

“No problem,” the griffin panted, also worn out from their flight for safety.

Kibou stood protectively by the opening, growling as his tail twitched in agitation.

“I’m Dante, by the way,” Dante said, “and that’s Kibou.”

“My name’s Skye and I know about you,” the little griffin replied, looking up at him. “Both of you were the talk of the village when Prospero and the others brought you in last evening.”

“Oh…” Dante worried their new acquaintance might feel the same way as Doncath did.

Skye, however, smiled a little at him. “You were awesome! I saw you take out both the simiari and the rhinocrine back there. That was fantastic!”

Their hiding place shook as another boulder hit it. Moss and dust rained down as they moved to see what was happening.

Guntur was using his club to pin Doncath to the ground. With his other hand, he picked up boulders to hurl into the air, aiming at Garrus. The older griffin was still locked in combat with Matuu, narrowly dodging the projectiles thrown at him.

“This isn’t good,” Dante said. “We’re not going to make any progress if that big lug is causing trouble.”

“But what can we do?” Skye asked, looking worryingly up at his father.

In response, Dante opened his satchel up again and reached inside. “There has to be something that can help us here.”

He cycled through several items; a flute, a looking glass with mystic writing along the rim, and several more potion bottles. Each one was dismissed by Skye, who seemed to know what they were.

Dante finally pulled out the leather-bound book from Prospero’s table. Its title was in more of that writing that he couldn’t understand.

“Would this help us?” he asked, holding it up.

Skye brightened up instantly. “Oh, a spell book! That’ll come in handy!”

Dante quickly flipped through it. “I can’t understand any of this writing, can you?”

The young griffin circled around to look over his shoulder. “A little. Dad was teaching me so I could eventually help protect the village. Not much, but I should still be able to use it.”

There was another crash from a bolder.

“Okay, but we may need something more for the big guy,” Dante said, reaching back into the bag.

The next thing he pulled out was another bottle. Instead of a potion, this one was filled with a glittering blue powder.

“That’s sleep dust,” Skye said after looking at it, “and pretty powerful stuff too! A pinch would be enough to put someone like Doncath to sleep for a few hours.”

“Just a pinch, eh?” Dante hefted the bottle, trying to guess how many pinches it held.

An idea started to form in his head.

“Okay! Skye, Kibou, listen up. Here’s the plan.”

---

I'll admit it, combat isn't really one of my strong points in terms of writing ^^;

That being said, I do think I've improved a lot from where I started.

Also, this chapter had originally started to get longer than it needed to be, so I cut it in half and made it into two chapters XD

Speaking of which, see you there!

Read and enjoy ^_^

~Aaron