Ellie's Warning

Without hesitation, as if everything happened in under a second, Lia pulled that gate and climbed on top of the logs, revealing everybody around me to a pack of so many wolves that I couldn't even count. I could feel my legs get more and more numb while I stood there, staring death directly in the face.

They kicked up sand as they ran in, past the gate, past our walls, which so easily opened from the inside. The protection we worked so hard for was instantly destroyed by a girl we took in and took care of.

The first wolf finally got within reach and instantly went for my neck, like it knew how to kill. I threw my left arm up and his teeth dug into my forearms as he tackled me. I screamed out in pain while feeling the hot blood pouring from my arm onto my own face. He shook his head and began to tear the flesh.

The next thing I could comprehend was a stick being pulled out from the side of the wolf's neck, and his body falling over to the side. Carl held out his hand, the hand that wasn't holding one of the stakes to our walls.

"We can't stand around! We need to fight back, this is still our home, no matter what they did to it!" Carl threw me one of the stakes and I grabbed it with my right arm, repositioning it to go on the offensive. Even Lia's dog was fighting back against the wolves, and he was good at it.

Her dog barked fiercely at the other ones and bit out their legs before going for the kill shot – their throats. He moved fast, just like I needed to. Carl broke off from me to go fight other wolves and two more came running at me.

I concentrated on the two in front of me, left the pain and fear behind in the sand, and charged at them. As soon as I could, I thrust the wooden stick into the mouth of one of the wolves. I felt splinters slide into my hand just as vividly as this wolf could feel the point of this stake against the back of his throat.

I kicked his limp body off of the bloodied stake and turned my body, sliding the stake into the side of the other wolf's neck. As easy as that, the two fell. I had to wonder, what was their plan in raiding our base with wolves that easy to kill? There had to be something else… what weren't we seeing behind the scenes? Was Charlie involved in their plan? I hadn't even seen him initially during our first day, did he betray us as well?

I went on to kill another wolf before deciding to group up with Ullr, Carl, and everybody else. "If we stick in a pack like they are, we can beat them out!" Carl yelled out, thrusting his stake into another wolf's skull.

In an initial pack of twenty-five, only seven remained. There were a lot more than seven of us, so we started chasing them down. But just as I assumed, they couldn't escape, the gate was closed.

The bodies of the wolves slammed against the doors to the gate… I finally realized it; we were locked out from the outside.

--Lia's Perspective--

I ran off and jumped back into the forest beside Dante.

"Good work, kid. Now, we just wait for them to fight off all those wolves to make it look like a fight, then we light it on fire. You poured the oil all over, right?" I nodded, throwing out an empty jug that used to be full of oil. Onto the ground beside us.

"Ehhh? That was oil in that jug?" That voice! I turned around as fast as possible, pulling the wooden stick I stole from Sky's base on my hip from its wrapping just in time to collide with a blade behind me.

The force behind the blade forced me back two feet into a tree trunk. I lost the air in my lungs and Dante unsheathed both of his swords this time, even assuming a proper position for fighting.

"It pleases my heart to know that I still scare the shit out of you, Dante." That girl… that was Ellie!

Ellie used to be Orion's top soldier, but she was thought to have been lost in battle. I was only present in that battle for the last part, so I only know that voice of a woman covered in so much blood that nobody knew how much of it belonged to her. Back during that time, a year ago, she resembled a red slime with how much blood poured off of her.

"I told you they'd attack your base. You'd better get back in there." Ellie let Dani, Red, and others run right past her, Dante, and me.

"Your girl poured water all over the logs. The only thing you did was make the ground more slippery than usual. I find it quite underhanded that you're fighting the White Stone with oil, fire, and hungry wolves. Because you didn't think you could kill him yourself, did you, Dante?" Dante clicked his tongue and engaged, slashing both of his swords at Ellie.

Ellie only used a short sword against him and was able to take all of his attacks, defuse them, and land a slice on his chest.

"If you run back and don't speak a word of my appearance, I won't murder you where you stand right now. Lia, when you get back to Orion, tell him that Ellie said, 'The White Stone will live unless you do something about it, okay?" She said, smiling.

"Let's retreat, Lia. She must've done something... I feel incredibly weak right now." Dante groaned and began to walk deeper into the forest.

I went with him but was stopped by Sky's screaming voice.