Angel Monarch

Vicky just stared into the burning campfire and in her mind she prayed for her mother to be okay.

In the past week or so she noticed small changes in her personality. At first she became much more emotional, which as Bea said was because of the hormonal cycle of being and evolved human.

But after a while she seemed to change in the opposite direction, not quite cold but as if she wasn\'t really the same person anymore. It was weird, and whenever Vicky brought it up to the others, they just told her that Sera is under a lot of stress... But they didn\'t know her as much as Vicky...

She spent a long time with her in that tiny room, but it was as if her mother was slowly forgetting the things they went through together.

This fact was really scary to think about, she was even afraid to bring it up with her other mother.

\'Bea wouldn\'t listen to me anyway... She never does, not like Sera... I miss my mommy...\'

While sitting a silent tear ran down on Vicky\'s cheek. Nobody in the group noticed her inner conflict and sadness, they were preoccupied with something more important... Figuring out where the Storm Spirit was.

Whatever they said to each other Vicky wasn\'t paying attention to it. Slowly she stood up and walked towards the makeshift hippogryph nest. Little Memento was happily jumping around, wanting to play with anyone.

She was too young to understand why the adults looked a bit crestfallen. Watching the tiny hippogryph hopping from one place to the other brought a small smile to Vicky\'s gloomy face, and brightened her mood a little.

As Memento noticed her approach she quickly jumped and headbutted her stomach. Luckily she wasn\'t strong enough to knock Vicky down, but Bea told her that hippogryphs matured fast.

In maybe a year or two she will be as big as the rest, well not as gigantic as Kastral. When she remembered the King of Hippogryphs and his rider, her pervious smile turned upside down.

Absentmindedly she stroked Memento\'s small bird head, which strangely enough calmed both of them down.

They sat on the cold ground and watched the stars together. It made her think of something that her mother once told her.

"If you ever get lost don\'t be sad. Just look at the stars and be assured that I\'m watching the same sky as you... No matter how far you are or how bad the situation is, just know that I will always find you. That is something I know for certain!"

As Vicky looked at the starry sky tears fell from her eyes. In her mind she repeated the same sentence over and over until it lost its meaning.

Feeling her fragile emotional state Memento came closer and buried her head into Vicky\'s chest. This caused a small sad smile to appear on her face, and she began scratching her chin\'s feathers.

They sat there staring at the night sky for an hour or so, but suddenly her attention went elsewhere. Farther away about three kilometers to the west some living thing was approaching them, fast!

Quickly Vicky jumped to her feet and was about to warn the others, but they also felt it. The creature whatever it was, didn\'t try to hide its presence. Bea was looking everywhere seemingly very anxious, but when her eyes fell on Vicky she breathed a sigh of relief.

\'She didn\'t even notice me leaving...\'

Out of the whole group Bea took it worst when Sera wasn\'t with them. It was like a core part of her went missing, and all around her was an aura of lethargy.

Vicky ran towards them, then Bea quickly put herself between her and whatever was approaching them. .net

The wind started to pick up and the previously starry sky was started to get blocked out by clouds.

"Sarah! Is this your doing?" Asked Bea while shouting over the heavy wind. The blue haired girl looked at Bea, then with a serious expression shook her head.

"Looks like we don\'t have to find the Storm Spirit after all!" Said Will without his usual joyfulness. All of them summoned their weapons and armor, except Vicky who had an absence of both.

Of course that didn\'t mean she was powerless, while the others were preparing for the physical fighting, Vicky was already readying an attack towards the creature\'s soul.

A bit further away a near translucent figure was gently and lightly floated towards them. It looked like a small girl, even a bit similar to Vicky. Her whole being was like a summer wind, fickle and giddy.

Her features were hard to distinguish, like she was just trying to imitate how a human\'s face should look.

The spirit stopped about ten meters away from them, then she stared at each of the members curiously. When her vision landed on Vicky, it seemed like a small happy smile appeared on her face.

"Hello, humans! I came in peace to parley with you!... By my understanding you arrived with the intention of hunting and killing me, but I would like to suggest another idea. As you know it would be very inconvenient to die for either of us, so how about you leave me alone?..."

The voice they heard came from all around them, like the wind itself was speaking. It actually made sense since she had a lack of vocal cords, but also gave a bit of premonition to her powers and strength.

Bea looked at each of them, then with a sigh she stabbed her sword into the ground. Her hand never leaving its proximity, just because the spirit wanted to bargain doesn\'t mean she would trust her.

The spirit seemed to understand this as well, but didn\'t say anything.

"What\'s your actual name?"

The spirit turned her head, like she was listening to the air. Eventually she made a bow, which looked ridiculous, because of her small body and floating nature.

"My name is Zephyr, at least that\'s what the people of this planet called me."

Hearing that the group collectively raised their eyebrows, non of them understood her meaning. The gentle wind spirit just chuckled and flew around a bit, she looked so careless even in the face of a possible confrontation.

"Oh, don\'t mind me... Those times were millenniums ago, when people worshipped the kind and gentle West Wind... Anyway let\'s get back to the topic. You want to hunt a monster, but as you can clearly tell I\'m just a transcended spirit!"

What she said didn\'t mean anything to the group, only Sarah seemed to have a bit of an understanding of what Zephyr said. Her education was much better than the rest of the group\'s so it made sense, but even she wasn\'t as smart as Sera... They were really missing the brain of the group.

She floated around a bit more, than with a chuckle looked at Bea.

"You have a bit of pure nature in you, how delightful! Back then they associated me with spring you know, but then all the gods went to sleep for a long time... I got off track again! My suggestion is to hunt down a corrupted named Notus. He was once my brother of sorts, but Madness took his mind."

Her erratic movement suddenly stopped and she stared at them a bit confused.

"I don\'t even understand why you wanted to hunt me... My power isn\'t related to storms at all!"

This time the eight of them were the confused ones.

"What do you mean? Aren\'t you a Storm Spirit?" Asked Sarah with disbelief, she thought Zephyr was lying to them. The spirit didn\'t take offense and instead flew closer to the group which put them a bit on edge.

"Of course not silly! Maybe you should check the batteries in those watches, they seem to get an awful lot of information wrong... *Chuckle* I\'m just kidding, it\'s not the watch\'s fault, but mine... You see these instruments work with cosmic materials, which gets more inaccurate as the creature\'s power grows!"

The fickle spirit flew away and danced in the tender wind. While spinning and doing cartwheels in the air, her voice appeared again.

"At the transcended level it becomes a bit lackluster. Those scouts years ago thought I didn\'t see them... What dummies... *Giggle* They even thought me a mere corrupted, a bit insulting if I do say so myself!... Anyway do we have a deal, or you still want to fight?"

The group looked at one another, then just shrugged. Bea took a step forward and said, "Okay, but only if you can point out Notus\'s exact location on our map!"

*Giggle* "Sure thing!... There he is, just a bit north from here!... Now that we are done with that I\'m leaving! Bye, it was nice to meet all of you!" As she left her voice echoed for a few more seconds in the wind, then it too gradually went away.

With nothing else to do and very weirded out by the encounter the group went to sleep. Tomorrow they would continue their journey. Vicky stared at the sky a while longer, then gently her eyes closed.

When she had fallen asleep, she dreamt of her mother. Sera was walking in a dark corridor, it was infinitely long and both sides were covered in doors. On each there was a label, but Vicky couldn\'t read them.

She seemed to be in a lot of panic, she was running around trying to open every door, but they were all locked. Eventually she stopped and just sat down with one of the doors to her back.

"I\'m sorry... I just can\'t... I can\'t..." While crying she whispered the same sentence over and over again. Vicky also felt her emotions, her mother was terrified, lost and extremely sad.

Then suddenly out of nowhere she shouted, "BEHIND YOU!"

As Vicky turned around a man in a lab coat slowly walked towards Sera. The old man brought a great amount of fear and pain to Vicky\'s soul, but she didn\'t understand why.

It felt like she seen this man before, but couldn\'t recall her memory about it. His hand slowly reached out and touched Sera\'s head, which caused an even bigger concern and horror to appear in Vicky\'s heart.

As the old man smiled, he turned towards Vicky and said, "You are next!"

The nightmare broke apart and Vicky woke up screaming from terror...