As we got to the selected island – one of the furthest islands from the beach, but large enough to have a small cove with shallow water that merged almost directly into a grassy clearing, with no real beach in between. Sidney and I got out of the water, allowing our bodies to shift to land version, before we headed up to the grassy area where Charlotte was waiting.
Jett was there, too, but in human version. Anthony was not. He took too long to shift to his dragon form to risk trying to do it after the centaurs arrived, so he was already in dragon form but on the next closest island, hiding behind the trees. Several aquatic shifters were helping us communicate with him, communicate with the dolphin shifters who were patrolling for humans, and communicate when the centaurs were close.
I glanced around curiously. “Have the demons already arrived?”
“Yep.” Charlotte gave me almost a smirk. “They’re hiding. Demons are good at blending in when they want – almost as good as invisibility potions, but it’s just their magic. We thought about having Britt out here with me, because they should know about my friendship with her, but we opted to just have the three of you. We don’t want to scare them off too much until after they get here. If they think there’s too many people here, they might not land, and we don’t want that.”
“But wouldn’t it make more sense for them to see your demon friend than a bunch of merfolk?” I frowned a bit. “They wouldn’t want to start a war with merfolk.”
“Fair,” Jett agreed. “Right, I have a suggestion – Britt comes, but Sage stays. They might have heard that you were walking around town yesterday with some merfolk, so it might be weirder to them if they didn’t see one. But Sage isn’t going to appear threatening, so they’ll just see it as mostly the two of you. Sidney and I will hide.”
I couldn’t disagree with his reasoning about me not appearing threatening, but as we rotated who was visible to anyone else approaching and who was not, I felt my nerves spike again. It’d been somewhat of a comfort to know that Jett, powerful as he was, and Sidney, also a strong oceanid, were right there with me – and were my friends. Britt was a stranger to me, and while Charlotte was a new friend, both of them were, well, more aggressive than I was used to. I kind of felt all alone standing with them, worried about what was to come.
“Hey,” Charlotte reached out a hand to squeeze my arm lightly, “it’ll be okay. We’ll do this without violence if at all possible, remember? And I won’t let them hurt you. I promise.”
I gave her a halfhearted smile. “It’s not just me I’m worried about getting hurt. It’s everyone. I just don’t – I don’t think I can handle seeing that again.”
“You won’t have to.” Her confident tone gave me some assurance. Somehow, looking at her, I was pretty sure she meant what she said. Instincts or not, Charlotte was going to do everything in her power to not let this turn violent – for my sake.
That really touched me.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a motor approaching. Just before it came into view, a stingray swam past the cove, briefly lifting one fin above the waves.
I took a sharp breath and tried not to hyperventilate. “It’s them.”
The boat turned into the cove a few moments later, the centaur driving it bringing it to a slow speed before one of them hopped out and tied the boat to a tree. Then, almost as one, they turned and headed in our direction, spilling out of the boat like there was no end to them.
There was just 11 of them, I knew that, but still, right now, with just three of us standing here, it felt like way too many.
I decided not to look directly at them, instead focusing on Charlotte. I could tell she was nervous, but she seemed determined, too, like she wasn’t about to run from this no matter how dangerous it was. That was admirable in a way. I mean, I didn’t like the idea of fighting, but…not being scared was good. Probably.
“So what’s this?” One of the other centaurs asked, her voice a little rough, almost like she made a habit of chewing nails or something. “You planning on joining or is this some sort of grand suicide attempt?”
On the other side of Charlotte, Britt suddenly growled and then let her full demon form show – aka horns and wings, with teeth sharper than normal.
“Demons don’t do suicide,” she snapped at them. “Don’t make yourselves look ridiculous by suggesting such.”
But the centaurs seemed oddly unbothered by her words, jeering amongst themselves like – ah. Charlotte said it was like a mob mentality. Like this, in a herd, their normal ability to sense danger might be turned down in favor of what the herd as a whole thought was worthwhile to be impressed by. If one of them was reckless enough to not care about a demon facing them, they all correspondingly thought it was amusing. No wonder Charlotte didn’t want to join them. And no wonder she was concerned that the herd might be willing to attack Jett even despite his size and general scariness.
I was super glad we’d brought a dragon and entire pandemonium for backup. It seemed like it might be needed.
“I’m not joining,” Charlotte said, and then she let out her centaur form, allowing her body to change into horse from the waist down. Chestnut, like I’d thought, to match her fiery hair.
One of the centaurs laughed out loud. “You’re challenging us? Just you? The demon might be fun, but your merfolk pet there looks like she’s going to barf if we get closer.”
I mean…they weren’t totally wrong.
I glanced over at them as I heard them start to change, too, which was what we were waiting for – we were waiting to get them all in full centaur form, because hooves don’t work well when suddenly bogged down in thick, deep mud.
But that was when things went wrong. Not for everyone, just for me. As I looked over at the centaur herd, my eyes fell on one of the females – the one with the rough voice who now was saying something that just sounded like buzzing in my ears because – because – because I recognized her.
In a moment, I was brought back to that day in elementary school as the bullies beat the kid to death in front of me and she, the centaur across the grassy area, just mere yards away from me, held me still, unable to scream, unable to escape, as she forced me to watch as the boy was killed in front of me. She’d laughed when some of his blood splattered onto me and made comments in my ear about how I’d be next.
I’d never told anyone about those threats. Not even Silas. I didn’t even like to think about them or why that was part of the reason I’d refused to go back to elementary school – because I was afraid she’d carry out her threat. I’d seen exactly what they could do and it had traumatized me deeply, but the threat that she’d wanted to do the same thing to me hadn’t exactly helped, either.
And now she was here again. I mean, maybe it made sense. Centaurs were normally sadistic, right? So it made sense that a centaur was involved in that kid’s death and in forcing me to watch. But I was completely not expecting to see her or anyone else from that day ever again and now I wasn’t even sure I could remember how to breathe anymore. Not with my memories flashing before my eyes, her words echoing in my head as I stared at her in horror.
I saw the recognition fill her eyes as she saw my face and she actually broke out into a smile. “Looks like I can make good on an old promise!”
And then they charged across the clearing.
In theory, this was where I was supposed to act, turning the ground into deep mud and getting them stuck so that they were trapped when they found themselves suddenly facing a kraken, a dragon, and a pandemonium.
Instead, I found myself falling backwards to the ground, unable to even keep my balance. My eyes were still locked on her, horrified, and apart from her face, all I could see were memories from that day. I couldn’t even focus on Charlotte yelling at me or Britt making some kind of magic that knocked them all backwards before they could get to us.
Then Sidney was there, fulfilling his promise and doing exactly what I was supposed to be helping with, only all on his own since I was still frozen in shock and fear. But on his own, Sidney was struggling to get the land to melt into mud fast enough to trap them all.
“Sage!” Sidney called to me. “Help me, please!”
The call for help seemed to snap me back to the present. I jerked my eyes away from the centaur, took a trembling breath, then called forth my magic to aid Sidney. With the two of us, the ground turned to mud much faster and the centaurs began cursing as they struggled in their attempts to pull themselves to the edge of the area and escape.
“You think this’ll hold us?” The rough-voiced female centaur was speaking to me now. “Just wait until I get over there, and then I’ll – ”
Charlotte moved so she was standing between me and the other centaur. “You’ll what?” She seethed. “Try to hurt my friend? I don’t think so.”
“What kind of idiotic game are you even playing?” A male centaur almost whined at her. “You think just getting us a little muddy is going to stop us? You can’t come out here, either, without getting just as trapped as we are. But we will get out, and the moment we do, you’re dead.”
“Oh,” Charlotte’s smirk was evident in her voice, “it’s not a game at all. We just need you to sit still for a moment.” And then she whistled loudly.
Had there been birds in the trees, they probably would have fled at that whistle, a whistle loud enough to almost break my eardrums.
It was also loud enough to alert our friends.
Suddenly, a large shadow crossed over us and then, with a deliberately heavy thunk, Anthony landed, letting out a puff of fire as he did. Although he was nowhere near as large as Jett, he was still massive, large enough to sit on several of the centaurs at once if he wanted. His long spiked tail was whipping around slowly on the ground, looking like he was just waiting to slap it at one of them and let them experience the pain of what looked like incredibly sharp dragon spikes.
Around us – even behind the herd – demons started to materialize from what looked like nothing. Just under two dozen demons, each of them with their demon horns and, where applicable, demon wings showing, and they were deliberately looking creepy and scary – just like the show Anthony was putting on.
But nothing prepared them for the sight of a kraken rising from the ocean, his gigantic arms easily able to crush the entire island if he wanted. His skin almost black, Jett was playing up his sheer size, making it feel like he just kept rising further and further and further from the water, like he’d never stop. He rumbled, the sound literally reverberating through the island and making even my bones vibrate.
Ah. No wonder Jett’s voice tended to send shivers down my spine. I’d never thought that it could be a kraken thing, but it made sense. Supposedly a kraken scream was powerful enough to break rocks in two – apparently his voice, even in human form, was designed to make people tremble.
Even our allies seemed a little shocked at the sight of Jett, which was quite understandable. Sidney and I were probably the only ones not bothered, simply because we saw him in kraken form all the time, although not deliberately trying to be scary like now. Charlotte shifted a little nervously, but I saw her quickly plant her hooves down like she refused to allow herself to show that, while several of the demons gawked openly.
But if our allies were shocked, that was nothing compared to the centaurs. They weren’t expecting a kraken to appear and were very much aware that the kraken was threatening them, while at least our allies knew he wasn’t going to hurt them. It’s one thing to see a kraken at all – it’s an entirely different thing to know it’s potentially going to attack you.
Charlotte swallowed and tried to remember her role in all this.
“So, as you can see,” she announced loudly, her confidence starting to come back, “I won’t be backing down. And you won’t be bothering me anymore, is that clear? In fact, you won’t be bothering anyone in town anymore or we,” she motioned to everyone around us, “will stop you. You think you can take on a lone centaur, sure; a demon or two, maybe; but an entire pandemonium? A dragon? A kraken? Not to mention the entire merfolk community would be up in arms if you so much as harm a single hair of this oceanid’s head,” she added with a glance at me.
I was startled by her bringing me into it, but Sidney looked oddly pleased with the statement. I decided not to challenge it – I mean, I was grateful that Charlotte was trying to protect me this way – so I just kept my focus on making sure my magic held the centaurs in place.
“You can’t fight us all,” Selene’s stone-cold voice preceded her appearance from the trees right next to the centaurs – she was within striking range of one of the herd, and for a moment my breath caught in my throat as I feared she would actually go beyond the whole “intimidation only” plan.
But thankfully she didn’t. “Your pitiful herd,” she told them, her eyes sweeping over the centaurs with an almost disappointed expression, like she couldn’t believe how pathetic they were, “can’t possibly stand up against all of us. You’re in way over your heads, little ponies. Be very careful about what you decide to do next.”
Almost as a whole, they looked incensed with her nickname for them.
“Ponies?” One of the centaurs sputtered.
“We’re not – ” The rough-voiced female centaur stopped whatever she was going to say abruptly as Selene leveled a scythe made of red magic at her, not even an inch from her throat. The slightest of moves from Selene, and the red magic would touch her neck.
I didn’t want to know what would happen if it did.
I swallowed down my fears, reminding myself that this was all just intimidation, we weren’t going to hurt them, the demons weren’t going to hurt them – no one was, not unless it became necessary. Selene was just scaring them. It was okay. I didn’t need to freak out.
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