The rock birds hit their line like avalanches given form.
Vera met the first one head-on, her psychic force slamming into it with enough power to actually push the massive creature back a step. The bird screeched in surprise—clearly not expecting such strength from a feline mythbeast.
Kael moved in concert with his companions, but everything he did, he made look like it came from them. When he hurled a telekinetically grabbed stone at the second bird's head, he positioned himself behind Vera and made the throw look like her psychic attack. When he sent flames wrapping around the bird's legs to superheat its stone plating, he kept Ember in the foreground, making it seem like her power alone.
The three tamers and their mythbeasts rallied, taking advantage of the opening Kael's team provided. The wind wolf darted in with renewed energy, its claws finding gaps in the stone plating that the heat was starting to crack. The two grass oxen, though exhausted, positioned themselves for supporting strikes, their vine-covered horns glowing with natural energy.
"Aim for the joints!" the dark-haired woman shouted. "Where the stone plates meet!"
Her wind wolf responded immediately, targeting the first bird's wing joint. Vera capitalized on the opening, her claws—enhanced by psychic energy—tearing through the weakened section. The bird stumbled, its left wing hanging uselessly.
The second bird tried to take advantage of Vera's commitment, swooping in from the side. Kael was ready. He grabbed it telekinetically—but made sure to gesture toward it as if commanding Ember. The tiny fairy caught on immediately, unleashing a compressed fireball that exploded against the bird's face just as Kael's psychic grip "pulled" it off balance.
To the watching tamers, it looked like Ember's attack alone had been powerful enough to stagger a seven-foot rock-type. Their expressions showed a mix of awe and confusion.
"What kind of fire fairy is that?" one of the male tamers—younger, with sandy hair—muttered to his companion.
"And that cat," the bearded man responded, watching Vera tear into the wounded bird with savage precision. "I've never seen a psychic-type move like that."
Kael kept his expression neutral, focusing on the fight. The deception was holding, but it required constant attention. Every move had to be choreographed, every attack attributed to his mythbeasts rather than himself.
The injured rock bird tried to retreat, but Vera was relentless. She harried it from one side while the wind wolf attacked from the other, their coordination surprisingly smooth despite having just met. Kael supported with subtle psychic nudges—pushing the bird toward their attacks, unbalancing it at crucial moments—all while staying positioned as if he were simply directing his beasts.
Ember, meanwhile, had taken on the role of area denial. She filled the clearing with walls of flame that herded the second bird, limiting its movement options. The heat was intense enough that even the stone-plated creature hesitated to charge through it. When it tried anyway, Kael was waiting—he superheated a section of ground it was about to land on, making the stone plating on its feet crack from thermal stress.
The bird screeched and stumbled, and one of the grass oxen finally landed a solid hit. Its horn, glowing with concentrated nature energy, punched through the bird's cracked plating and into its chest.
The bird collapsed, breathing heavily but still alive. Defeated.
The first bird, seeing its companion fall, tried one last desperate attack. It launched itself at the exhausted tamers with its remaining functional wing, talons extended—
Vera and Kael hit it simultaneously with everything they had. Psychic force crushed down from above while Ember's flames exploded from below. The bird slammed into the ground hard enough to crack stone and didn't get back up.
Silence fell over the clearing, broken only by heavy breathing and the crackle of dying flames.
Kael quickly assessed the damage. Vera had several scratches across her shoulders and flanks—nothing serious, but they'd need attention. Ember seemed fine, her ethereal body harder to injure than physical flesh. He himself had collected a few cuts and bruises, including the earlier shoulder impact that still throbbed.
He deliberately didn't activate Divine Restoration. Not here, not with witnesses. Revealing that ability would raise too many questions he wasn't ready to answer.
The three tamers approached slowly, their own mythbeasts limping along beside them. Up close, Kael could see they were young—probably early twenties, not much older than his apparent age. They looked like they'd been through hell, covered in dirt and blood and exhaustion.
"Thank you," the dark-haired woman said, her voice hoarse. She looked at Vera with something like wonder. "Your beasts... they're incredible. I've never seen a psychic-type and fire-type coordinate like that."
"We got lucky," Kael said carefully, trying to downplay it. "Right place, right time."
"Lucky," the bearded man repeated with a short laugh. "Kid, your cat just went toe-to-toe with a rock-type twice her size and won. And that fire fairy of yours hit harder than mythbeasts from tamers twice your age. That's not luck, that's power."
Kael shrugged, uncomfortable with the attention. Through his bond with Vera, he felt her amusement at his discomfort.
"I'm Mira," the woman said, gesturing to herself. "This is Garrett,"—she indicated the bearded man—"and that's Finn." The sandy-haired younger man nodded. "We're... well, we were supposed to be a team of four, but..."
Her expression darkened, and Garrett picked up the thread. "We were tracking those damn birds for hours. They kept splitting us up, trying to isolate us. We lost contact with Ren about an hour ago. Last we heard, he was heading east with his beast, trying to draw one of them away."
"East," Finn added, worry evident in his voice. "But we've been fighting for so long, we don't even know if he's still—"
A boom echoed through the forest, loud enough to shake leaves from trees. It came from the east, unmistakable and ominous. Thunder, but wrong somehow. Too focused, too controlled to be natural.
Everyone froze.
"Ren," Mira breathed, her face going pale. "That's where he went. That's—"
Another boom, followed by what sounded like a tree splintering.
Kael looked at Vera and Ember, saw his own determination reflected in them through their bonds. Someone was in trouble. Someone these three people cared about.
"East," he said, already moving. "We go now."