The ride back to school was long, but none of us could focus on training like we did when we came up.
Fthwip!
"I swear we leave a trail of charred squirrels everywhere we go," Devin remarked as Laura's burning knife crackled in a squirrel.
"Look, it's impossible for me to not be on edge after four days of being on guard, I'll keep watch until we are back at school..." She threw another knife. "and you shut your trap and go do alchemy or something."
Devin retreated to the interior of the carriage, only to see me drawing up plans for a new project.
"What's this one? You planning world domination with a fork?" Devin said, seeing the fork-like gadget I was working on.
"No, this is a 'Revealer.' Because of the Shifters, I noticed an important thing about Changeling Suits, they can very easily be used as disguises. All you have to do is kill a court official and shapeshift your suit into his face and clothes."
"So what does this Revealer do."
"It reverts Changeling Suits to pure Mimic and disintegrates their spirit paper."
"So what does it do to your armor?"
"That's the thing, it would do nothing, I have no idea how to counter Changeling Armor."
"Well isn't that a good thing? It means you can use your Armor to sneak into their courts and they can't use your Suits to sneak into your hideouts."
"Devin, you're a dumbass. You're lucky I hushed the zone with a vacuum, or else Professor Lana would have just heard you tell me to take over the kingdom."
Suddenly a portal the size of a pinhole that I didn't notice opened wide enough for the Professor to step through.
"Are you two part of the rebellion?" She asked.
"No," I answered flatly while preparing my best spells.
"Well, I know you are, or at least are going to be, so I'll tell you this: I'm in."
I was so shocked that I lost concentration on the spells I was preparing.
"What? Aren't you part of the Constables?" I had picked up on the king's special forces very quickly.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean I'm not a person, I despise the king. He killed the man I loved for being a human and standing in his line of sight, he is not a good man."
"I knew he was bad for the humans, but I didn't know he was that bad."
'She's lying.' Orin's consciousness filled my head.
"HERE!" I heard Laura shout as Lana opened a portal to escape.
The carriage suddenly flipped onto its side and caught fire. My Changeling Armor covered my entire body instantly to protect me from the flame, and I dragged Devin out of the carriage just before it exploded. The fire had finally reached the oil we had for our lanterns.
"LAURA!" I shouted, still pulling the unconscious Devin along with me.
A crossbow bolt flew at me from my right and was easily deflected by my armor. I noticed the thin metal wire attached to the bolt and assumed that I would be fighting a lightning mage of mediocre talent. It was common for them to use wires to transfer their spells since any direct attack would have to either come from above or be made of ball lightning. Lightning bolts would just discharge into the ground.
"LAURA!" I shouted again.
'Laura is a traitor.' Orin's thoughts once again filled my head.
I built a harness out of a nearby tree and hooked Devin onto me.
'In that case, let's go, it's us against the world. I trust you.'
I took off, leaving Laura and all of the inventions and logs I had behind me. Or so I thought.
Off in the distance, I saw the giant form of my tree tower, walking.
"I know where I'm going."
I dove down and flew just above the treeline, gaining a lot of momentum.
'I must be going at least five hundred kilometers per hour, my changeling armor is protecting my face from the wind.'
I changed the harness to protect Devin, and he was waking up.
Another crossbow bolt came out of nowhere and almost hit one of my wings.
As soon as he opened his eyes he understood the situation.
"Devin!" I shouted over the wind. "Disrupt that spatial mage! There is no way they could keep up without Lana!"
He shook himself awake. "You got it, boss!"
Devin's eyes gained a purple sheen and every now and then he would put his hand out and it would glow purple. No more bolts came.
"Devin! You're not going to like this, but I'm running on fumes!"
'Don't worry little one.'
Orin appeared in front of us with his air steps and easily kept up.
"Alright Devin, this one is going to be a little tricky!"
I expertly lined up with Orin and matched his speed.
'I'm going to land on your back now. Ok?'
'Do it.'
I lowered Devin onto Orin's back first, then I landed.
Orin surprised both of us when we turned left and an army of copies of us went in all directions.
'Don't worry, we cleaned out the tower and burned it down, this one is just a copy.'
"Why can you do that now?" Our ride was smooth and we couldn't hear the wind.
'I was going to surprise you with my new mastery, but circumstances didn't allow for it. Those copies use the same principle that my size-changing ability does, I'm borrowing mass from the God of the Beasts. Those copies are mostly hollow and still force me to be smaller.'
Orin was about the size of a horse at the moment.
"What do we do now?" Devin asked, he had recovered.
"We do what we said we would, join the rebellion, and kick Laura's ass."
"No, I mean Orin is going to run out of Eneru any minute now."
We landed and started to walk, it was cold because the area we were in was a tundra with the quirk of having many geothermal hot spots that were almost savannas temperature-wise. Night settled and the news that we were traitors on the run set in.
"Orin, where are we going?" I said, half asking myself.
"Your parents attacked the school once they found out that they were planning on making an accident out of you. They told me the coordinates of a rendezvous you could go to if you escaped." Orin told me the coordinates and I noted that they were very far away.
"So we're going there then. Settle in for a long haul." I laid in the snow, letting Orin's fur coax me into sleep.