I laughed happily as I dodged another set of swipes from the chimera, Marceline floated above it, slashing at the goat head that bleated in annoyance and attempted to headbutt her to no avail. Its lion head roared, and just as it opened its jaws to snap at me, a whip crack echoed throughout the forest, and it recoiled to the side with a pained roar. Sidney reeled back and sent another before being tackled to the side by her Teguan as the snake head tail slammed into where she had been standing. Travis lunged forward and slammed his hammer into the chimera's side, causing it to stumble and giving me an opening.I raced forward, attempting to slice a gash in the monsters side but I barely left a noticeable mark, I twisted and spun as a shadow blotted out the sun and the hair on the back of my neck stood up before diving out of the way and turning to see the snake head had spat poison that was sizzling on the ground I had been a few seconds before. The snake head reared and went to spray again, I rolled out of the way but the snake seemed to have thought of that as it sprayed poison in a unending cone that followed very closely. Sidney's voice punched through the chaos of the fight "It's hide is too tough, you have to cut or kill the heads!"I glanced over to see the nature mage disappear into the cave with her Teguan and I wasn't the only one. With an enraged roar, the Chimera swiped at Marcie who had to hop backwards and out of position to dodge the giant claws. It then turned and started for the cave but Travis and I were faster, I felt the ground underneath turn mushy with water before the Chimera prepared to leap and with a loud splash, sunk 5 feet into the ground, the mud sank up to cover its paws and ankles before freezing. It looked confused for a second before I smashed my chaos enhanced body into it, sending it stumbling into a tree before it fell disoriented. I smirked and looked at Travis remarking "Come on. You gave it a foot bath."He rolled his eyes "Hey, this is totally opposite my training!"I laughed and readied my warpicks as I channeled chaos through my legs before launching off the ground towards the chimera who struggled to move as ice slowly crept up its legs, it's goat head bleated in alarm as the lion body moved, too slow. My warpicks slammed into the head of the goat knocking it back over and sending the snake head to slam against a tree with a loud pained hiss. My first hit had barely sunk into the goats neck and wouldn't budge as I went to pull it out for another swing. I growled and let go, opting to two hand my other warpick and slam it into the goats nose. It managed to flail and intercept the blade but I didn't relent, raising up to strike again. This time, chaos rushed through my blood and channeled down my arms before I struck, once, twice, three times. The chimera roared in pain as the goat head hung limply against the ground, I pulled my warpicks free then was thrown off as the chimera stood, rage was coming off the monster as it's pelt glowed before it turned to me with hate in it's eyes. It roared and I could see the insides of its throat, the large teeth were the sizes of metal cans but what caught my attention was the ever increasing orange glow.I quickly glanced to my companions to see Travis well out of the line of fire, then around the cave clearing before feeling arms on my shoulder, pulling me out of the way. I could see the fire now, the orange and red magic sparking as it ignited in my direction. We wouldn't be fast enough.
I turned as I was pulled and wrapped myself around Marceline before coating myself in chaos a second before the fire engulfed us.
I panted heavily as a wave of tiredness poured over me as I surrounded us in a bubble of chaos as best I could, in reality the chaos had formed a shield had formed around us but I wasn't prepared enough at the point blank plume of fire. I should've expected it, the same move was a signature of mine that I had taken from the chimera. I grimaced as I felt my energy quickly sapping away, I opened my eyes and sighed in relief as Marceline gazed back with worried eyes. She glanced around at the raging fire that engulfed us and the shimmer of my magic that was the only thing protecting us and murmured, "How long can you-"Chaos mist shot out of my nose as a reflex that used to happen when I used fire magic as I snorted in response and cut her off as I adjusted from the haphazard pose I had managed to get into "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine Marcie, did it catch you?"She shook her head and I sighed softly and said "Usually there's a tell before they blast so much fire, this one must be older. Ready?"She smiled and reached forwards, a small 'tink' sounding as she pressed her helmet-covered forehead to mine before disappearing in a puff of magic. I smiled and shook my head before turning my attention to the raging fire magic that had attached itself to my chaos. I felt the chaos stir in my blood before I lunged forward, ripping the shield with a roar as I launched towards the monster who hesitated for a second in surprise as I covered the distance and slammed my warpicks blade deep into the jaw of the chimera sending it the the ground. I gestured and chains erupted from the ground and pinned it to the ground, and I quickly climbed onto its head and hooked my hands onto the top of his jaw and starting to pull. I grunted as the chimera strained against the chains and yelled out. "Just die already!"Travis appeared in front and with a giant swing, hammered into the blunt side of my warpick. Easily anchoring the weapon back into the ground as the chimera struggled to escape. Then he pointed and I felt water droplets condense on my armor before sliding off me as the water mage increased its density and it's resulting weight. I grinned as a light coat of water weighed the chimera down and with a loud grunt of exertion started to pull it's jaw back.The chimera roared in pain and fire erupted from it's mouth, sending fire around the clearing. Marceline hopped up into then behind a large tree, I hadn't seen Sidney since she had disappeared. Travis raised a wall of water from the ground to shield himself from the flames before sending a spray of water towards the monster and encasing the inside of it's jaws in a muzzle of water that immediately started to bubble as it continued to spray fire. I heard bubbling and snapping noises beneath me and glanced down to see that the hide of the Chimera had started to distort and bubble in places. My eyes widened as I noticed the ticking bomb suddenly beneath my feet and I yelled out "Get back! It's gonna blow!"I froze as I heard Sidney's scream and the sound of something solid hitting something less solid from behind me, in the direction of the cave entrance but much closer than it should've been. I turned and saw her, the nature mage didn't have her satchel anymore and seemed to be mid stride when the tail of the chimera lashed out, breaking the chains and slamming into her, sending her flying back and crumpling to the ground."Sid!!" Travis's voice broke through the fight and I yelled back "I'll get her! Get back!"He nodded with a desperate look at Sidney who was laying near the cave, the chimera and I between them. I released the chimera's upper jaw and went to jump when the chimera roared and struggled harder, breaking the bonds and sending me into the air. I could only watch as I sailed towards the left of where the unconscious nature mage was. I gritted my teeth as I reached towards her before hitting the ground and rolling, coming to a stop with a loud "Umphh!" as I slammed into a tree.I struggled to my feet, stars danced in my vision as I stumbled forward before falling to my knees disorientated. I managed to clear my vision for a few seconds to see the Chimera was dazed and struggling as well. It's body was still distorted although the rate had slowed, the lion head groggily shook, it's goat and snake head were hanging limply with the snake having burst open in places from the burn. I grimaced as I stood and took a shaky step towards Sidney quickly followed with uneven steps that eventually turned into a stumbling run as I closed the distance to the chimera, it hissed and lunged towards me. I threw myself into a roll and tumbled under the leaping chimera and came up before coming up only to see the Chimera was turning and without hesitation launched itself at us. I threw my hand out, a large haze of chaos coalescing into a large hand that smashed into the large beast and threw it onto it's back. It roared in pain, the sound distorting at the end as it's body started to puff and glow dangerously with magic. I quickly turned and scooped Sidney up before crying out in pain and falling, twisting and cradling the unconscious mage so I didn't land on her. I looked down at my ankle, a small gash that was sliced into my ankle guards oozed green slime. The snake head must've gotten me when I'd been thrown from the beast, there was no way I was going to be able to get Sidney and myself to safety in time."Unless.." A soft voice reached my ears. I turned and she was sitting there, her customary flowery dress was carefully under her and she cradled Sidney's head in her lap. It felt like time had stopped as she gazed down at me.My voice came with a scratchy rasp "I'm not fast enough yet...I...I can't think of a way out."She smiled and nodded "Then don't think Samuel."I sneered softly "It has been years since I placed trust in blind faith."She furrowed her eyes unamused, her eyes sparkled red and gold. Like fire. Her voice was low and measured as she cradled Sidney's head "Is your faith really that blind, Herald?"That word, Herald, ignited something inside me. A burn erupted in my chest as I stared at the erupting monster. I saw Travis, taking cover behind a large tree. His eyes frantically searching the clearing. Sidney lay there, silent and unmoving, still too far from safety. A flash of blue caught my eye and I spied Marceline. Her face full of worry as she danced in the sky above, air magic pulsing around her as she floated through the air. I clutched my chest as the burn erupted throughout my entire body and a roar reached my ears. Then, a soft jingle and her voice again "Trust in our lady Samuel. She is there for all her children."I took a soft breath, watching the cloud of chaos magic puff past my lips and finally understood. The epiphany. And of course, it comes now. I was looking at it wrong. Still. I was still treating chaos as my lava magic. Something that needed to be guided and wielded to be harnessed. But chaos wasn't that. I thought back to the hospital, that day when Doc Brackenfield had shown me the diagrams of my magic. Then I remembered that night, those words. Her name. She had said the lady had chosen me. I had never really believed much in divine intervention, we knew the gods existed and perhaps took notice of our prayers on an omnipotent level but this felt...different. More personal in a way. Was this what those high religious priests in the big cities always croak about? A feeling of comfort and content in the back of your mind, a presence that only you could feel?"Yes. You finally understand. I see you, my Herald. Samuel Degray. Do you see me?" A new voice, this one somehow familiar yet foreign at the same time. I looked up and finally saw her, she floated in the air, a gentle smile on her face. She was only corporeal from her stomach up, the rest of her body hidden in a cloud of chaos. She leaned forward on her elbows with an expectant gleam in her eyes.I smiled nervously and went to speak but the words were pulled from my throat "My lady...Izostaris."She nodded and gently reached forward poking a sharp nail tipped finger into my forehead and sending me tumbling back into a mess of bubbling chaos. The world froze in time, my vision was tinted red and black like i was surrounded by a cloud. I noticed that time hadn't stopped, but it was slowed...no. I was moving faster. I grinned victoriously and looked around the clearing, spotting Sydney. I went to move and floated there as if gravity had been turned off. My body was a haze of writhing chaos, I steadied myself and mimicked as if I was swimming by simply pumping my arms through the air. I spun in the air as I got comfortable in the marker, it was more of a miasma than a haze and the word settled in the deepest parts of my mind, MIASMA, a smiled crossed my lips as the spell's knowledge became clear. Markers were the default word of the transport spell, or perhaps it was simply different for chaos. Even magic has it's quirks, every spell has a unique signature that demonstrates the mage's magic affinity. Lightning magic tended to smell of ozone regardless of what spell, sulfur was the tell for a lava mage, even nature mages tended to smell of flowers or freshly turned earth or the wind would pick up for an air mage. So while most mages markers takes the shape of a formless cloud that simply surrounds the user and consumes the user's energy. Once you've understood it enough, it will ingrain itself into your magical core as a spell, unique to you. Of course, anyone with fire magic can easily mimic a fireball but everyone will have their own signature way of casting that or how that fireball would act as a spell. So the equivalent of a marker for a water mage like Travis would probably be his body turning into water or water vapor. My vision sharpened as I focused on Sydney, her chest rose evenly and I reached forward. Surging forward with 'MIASMA' active, I easily scooped her into my arms and the world sped back up as I raced away from the explosion of magical energy. I appeared next to Travis in almost an instant, my chest heaving as I placed Sidney down against the tree. I gave him a nod as we locked eyes before I was turned my attention back towards the Chimera. I let out a growl and surged towards the cave entrance, cutting it close as I raised a barrier of chaos behind me and turned to brace it when a second later the full force of the explosion erupted causing an orange glow to shine through the mouth of the cave, illuminating the walls as if it was sunset and revealing the tunnel deeper into the hill. A few minutes later I let down my barrier and walked out into the destroyed clearing.I chuckled a bit and called out "Everyone okay?!"Marceline floated down with a relieved look on her face, embracing me with a sigh. I smirked down at her "What did I say about not trusting me?" She playfully punched my chest with an eyeroll and a smile.I pulled her into another hug as I searched the area, spotting Travis cradling a now-conscious Sydney who was nursing her ribs as they slowly made their way over. I smiled at them as Marcie turned with another relieved sigh before asking "How are you feeling Sydney?"She chuckled as she climbed out of Travis's arms much to his protest and waved embarrassed "I'm alright, besides being knocked out by a monster." Her eyes lit up as she glanced towards the cave behind me and exclaimed "Never mind that! You'll never guess what I discovered! Come on!" She quickly pushed past with a laugh, that spread to the rest of us with grins.We followed her into the cave, passing out some snacks that Travis had packed in a small pack that were made by the school, magic restoratives they called them. Travis also pulled a lantern out of his pack that easily illuminated the tunnel. We emerged into a small cavern, enough for at least two chimeras to live comfortably and the large nest at the backside of the room may be evidence that perhaps that may have been the case once upon a time. Sidney led us towards the nest and carefully crawled into it, a familiar chirp echoed as we followed. Sidney's Teguan looked up with it's mouth open in a smile but didn't move from where it was hovering over Sidney's bag protectively. I glanced around the nest, noticing the level of ambient magic in the nest was higher than the surrounding cave. I crouched distracted as I dug through the nest before pulling out a familiar crystal that was about the size of an apple. Sidney's laughed out "I see Sam's already found it. But! I know how to birth a chimera!"Travis crossed his arms as Sidney walked over and patted her Teguan's head and picked up her bag revealing a basketball sized mottled colored egg. It looked like a kid's first easter egg with the random splotches of color. He asked "And how did you find that out? Don't the monster books say that Chimera's are simply amalgamations of magic and creatures?"She nodded and continued "Yes, the books say that while a Chimera's origin is debated, it's heavily agreed that like some magical creatures and monsters. They are born wholly of magic interacting in unique ways with wildlife to create magical life. And I agree that that is true. However, I think that is about to change." She hooked her bag back on her hip and pointed to the crystal in my hand and declaring "That. Is a magical crystal core. Only found in the bodies of magical creatures and only obtained by killing the creature and harvesting the crystal."We all nodded with clueless looks making her sigh before shaking her head and saying "Travis turn off your lantern."He furrowed his eyebrows but did as she asked and plunged the cavern into darkness for a few seconds. Soon, soft glows emerged from the nest, illuminating a short area around the nest, the cause, dozens of similarly shaped crystals. Sidney grinned triumphantly as she declared "Wild chimera are using various types of monster cores to influence and hatch their young."We all stared in shock at the revelation before I looked around and said "And these aren't small crystals either. I wonder. If we harvest the chimera crystal from the corpse outside then set that one with the largest of these in the nest. Do you think you can hatch a chimera?" Sidney bounced on her feet, giddy with excitement clear in her grinning face "There's only one way to find out!"Laughter echoed throughout the small cavern as we set to work, the girls chose to dig through the nest to gather all the crystals and any other treasures that may be in the cave while Travis and I salvaged what we could from the chimera we had killed outside. The corpse was destroyed, the explosion has erupted from it's stomach and Travis groaned out "With the way that thing looks there's no hope of finding the crystal intact."I shook my head and replied "They're made of solidified magic, you'd be surprised the abuse those things can take. I doubt we'll be able to harvest much from the corpse besides maybe the pelt, it definitely won't win any awards in a taxidermy contests."He laughed and rubbed his hands together "Alright, I can use some water magic to skin it but I'll definitely throw up if I have to go digging through innards."I smirked and shrugged as I made my way towards the corpse pulling my gauntlets off and hooking them to my belt as I remarked "You're cleaning the blood off me then. Besides, it's only the worst the first time. Just don't breathe through your nose."He gagged and I laughed as I set about searching through the innards of the slain chimera, it took me only 10 minutes of searching until I found the beasts heart and traced the magic lines to it's core and carefully extracted the core from the remains. Travis nodded as I stepped back admiring the magical core, it was definitely the largest of the cores which made sense. About the size of a small watermelon and was dense with magic, primarily fire, it's orange color reflected well in the light as Travis skinned the chimera and pulled it off with a grunt of effort. He rolled it up before turning towards me and with a wave of his hand washed the blood off my arms and the chimera crystal. It only increased the radiance of the crystal as fire etched designs were revealed all over it. Travis whistled in appreciation as we heard the girls emerge from the cave talking. Sidney jogged over excited as she spied the large core in my hands "Wow! I didn't expect it to be this big. This'll definitely work. And we can recycle the crystals afterwards too. Alright, let's get home. I need a shower and some ice."I handed the the core over and she slipped it into the last pocket of her bag, the large crystal bulging out from the bag but secure. I stretched with a satisfied smile, placing my hands behind my head as I watched the others start to walk away. I counted before Travis stopped and turned on a dime with wide eyes and pointed at me "You...you made a marker!"I smirked and spread my hands out as the other two turned with wide eyes and smiles. "Oh what? Y'all really doubted me?"Marcie laughed and shook her head with a gleam in her eyes as Sidney patted her Teguan's head who was paddling along beside her happily. Travis had an impressed look on his face and walked over extending his arm as he admitted "Alright, I was wrong about you. You've got my respect even more now." I smiled and took his arm in a firm clasp "Oh just you wait. We're going to kick even more ass now."Marcie's laugh echoed through the forest as we made our way back "Ah there's the ego again. I was worried that the Chimera had knocked it outta ya. How's your ankle by the way? I saw that you'd gotten hit."I gestured towards my ankle where the slash through my boots was, the wound closed and scabbed over "I'm alright. The snake head caught me somehow and I hadn't seen or felt it until i put pressure on it. It healed well enough once I hit my epiphany. " they nodded and I slung an arm around Travis on my left who was holding hands with Sidney and the other around Marceline on my right, "Yeah but just wait until we get back to the cottage. I think I've finally figured out my problem. And a way forward." As we walked back towards town, talking and joking. My thoughts returned to my goddess. I had seen her for the first time, really seen her. The others hadn't seen her so perhaps the gods really did care about their followers. She had called me her Herald, that title had ignited something inside me. I wasn't prepared for a title like that. Not yet. But when the time comes. I will be. A feeling of approval radiated through me, as the soft feeling of a motherly hug.