Jolting awake, I shot up with a start at the sound of a bird's screech.

Groaning, I fell back into my bed. Just a dream. Unfortunately, my body didn't feel the same way. I felt lightheaded, sick, and so so tired. I felt like I could sleep for a kelton. Everything was sore, from the tips of my toes to the end of my nose. Even my hair felt heavy on my scalp, as it fell haphazardly into my face. And oh, sweet Seklos, my neck....

Wait. I gingerly reached up to touch my neck, which felt bare and open for some reason. Brushing my fingertips gently across my throat, I gasped in pain as it touched upon something open and squishy. Taking them away, I saw the tips of my fingers were coated in a dark blue substance. My blood.

Then, I noticed it was matted into my hair, and my shirt was covered in dark blue stains. It was splattered around everywhere, like some cerulean horror scene. On the sheets, on the carpet, even a few dried drips were splattered on my face. Then, when I rolled over to hit the light on my nightstand, everything came back. Lunalis.

She wasn't herself, I was certain. Looming over me, silently waiting in the shadows, eyes glowing red...

Wait. Her eyes are not red, they're green, I thought, and gasped in alarm. I need to tell the others, now! Quickly, I swung my legs over and tried to stand. I immediately regretted it. Sinking back onto my bed, head swimming, I could barely see straight. Okay. Maybe I should tell the others a little bit later.

**********

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, SHE GOT LOOSE?!?!?!" Archie screamed in my face.
"She escaped," I murmured as Claire pumped magical energy into my feeble body via touching my back.

The moment I called, they all came rushing over. Toby, Jim and Claire were already used to midnight calls, so they came first. Then came Steve, in a rumpled t-shirt and loose shorts. Lastly, Douxie and Archie and, needless to say, they were less than impressed.

"She wasn't herself," I insisted as Douxie paced in the kitchen. "She deactivated the blanks by biting them! Her teeth were like fangs! They definitely were not sharp enough to pierce solid metal yesterday!"

"He has a good point," Jim backed me up. "You said it yourself: Ventils are made of different animals. I'm pretty sure wolves don't bite people in the neck to drink their blood."
"Yeah. Those are vampires. Duh," Steve said, messing around with his ax.

"I just don't know how she could have gotten loose," Douxie marveled, still pacing around. "I mean, she wasn't completely alone, correct?"
"No. And I woke up every hour to check her security cameras," I swore. "And you put a sleeping spell on her before we moved her to the bed, correct?"

"Yes, of course we did," Archie answered for Douxie. "But that doesn't explain how she got out of the house without being stopped!"
"Maybe...it had something to do with her eyes," Claire said, standing and leaving my side. "Something was wrong with her. I could....sense it, almost. Maybe it was just my imagination, but she seemed..darker. More powerful, almost."

"Her eyes were red," I said, recalling the way they hunted me in the dark. "And they did seem to glow with some strange, abnormal power."
"That is definitely not normal," Douxie agreed. "Arch, have you ever read about a Ventil's eyes changing color 'cause of emotions or something similar?"

"No," Archie admitted glumly, curling up on the kitchen counter. "The moment I suspected there were Ventils in Arcadia, I poured over every single text and book that might have the smallest bit of information about them, but all of them were basically the same! I even went and asked my father if he had any scrolls or tomes with Ventils in them, but the only thing I could get out of them was a few legends on Eclipse!"

"You mean the super powerful goddess lady who made the Ventils out of dirt, wind and water?"Toby asked.
"Yes. And if you ask me, some of those legends are better left forgotten," Archie shuddered. "She was the most ruthless, psychotic figure in Ventil history. Even after she supposedly 'died', she had a reputation for inhabiting the minds of Ventils, and would turn them into her personal puppets to continue her deeds in the living world. Nonsense, if you ask me, but one can never be too careful."

"Wait," I stopped him. "Mind control? Venquilitrism? You don't think..."
"-that Eclipse might be controlling Lunalis...do you?"
"Of course," Jim sighed. "Because that's just how our luck works."
"If Eclipse is real, and she has control over Lunalis' mind," Douxie said slowly. "Then this is much worse than we could ever imagine."

"Well, we can't just sit here doing nothing," Claire exclaimed. "We need to go after her!"
"Woah woah woah, dude," Steve exclaimed. "Go out into the woods? In the middle of the night? Looking for a Wolf Lady that made the freaking universe?! But it's almost 2 am! And there's a thunderstorm coming-"

"No debating about this," I said, standing suddenly. "We have go after her. Now. I don't care if she's a goddess or not. We need to find her." Everyone was silent, staring at my outburst. Then, slowly, Jim stood. "I'm with Krel on this," he said. "We're going to get her."

One by one, everyone stood. Eventually, even Steve groaned and slowly rose to his feet. "So we're all in agreement, then?" Douxie asked. We all nodded. "Well then," he said, Archie swooping onto his shoulder. "Off we go!" And with that, Douxie summoned flashlights for all of us, and we all tromped out the front door of the Mothership and into the woods.

**********

We trekked through the woods, flashlight beams casting glares on the trees and fallen branches as we searched. The wind was blowing hard, shaking the leaves and branches of the trees above us. And, to make matters worse, it had started to rain, the drops beating down on us with such intensity we were thoroughly soaked before long. "Lunalis," I shouted, glancing my light around the woods, searching for her. The water plastered my hair to my face, and the wind kept blowing it into my eyes so I couldn't see.

"Lunalis," Claire called, her beam passing over the branches that looked suspiciously like claws reaching out to grab her. "Lunalis! Come on, mate, don't be like this," Douxie yelled over the shrieking wind. Archie, in dragon form, dug his claws into Douxie's shoulders, wings shielding his head from most of the water. "Yo! Wolf Lady," Steve shouted. "I don't really like you, but everyone else here wants to find you for some reason, so just stop hiding and come here so we can all go home!"

"Really, Steve?!" Toby yelled over the wind, which had picked up speed and was beating against us mercilessly, freezing us half to death. I could barely hear the others yelling and shouting Lunalis' name over the howling of the wind and the unrelenting downpour of the storm. I tripped over a root and landed hard on my face, my flashlight bouncing away into the underbrush. I tasted blood in my mouth, and my jaw was sore from impact with the ground.

Slowly rising onto my hands and knees, I crawled over to where my flashlight had rolled. Just as I grabbed it off the ground, the stray beam of light cast over an imprint in the ground. Something that looked suspiciously like a footprint. "Everyone," I shouted, waving them over with my light. "I found a footprint! It might be Lunalis!"

Everyone sprinted over, flashlights in hand, intently studying the print I had found. "Leave this to me," Douxie said, tapping his enchanted bracelet and lighting it up with blue magic. "Since Ventils have a high concentration of magic in their bodies, they leave little bits and pieces of it behind wherever they walk. Think of it as an invisible snail trail that only people with magic can see."

"Wait. If Ventils leave magic in their footprints and whatever, why didn't you just check for magic in the footprints first found in Arcadia?" Claire asked, and we all nodded in agreement. "Because, first of all, magic trails are very faint and temporary," Archie spoke up. "They only last about half an hour, maximum. Then, the magic fades away and cannot be used to track something. Second, I...erm, lost the prints the night after I found them."

"The woods are a maze, and it's a lot harder to track things when you're only a foot tall," he said bitterly when he saw us glaring. "Well, we have fresh prints now," Douxie said, stopping a potential fight from breaking out. "They might have just enough magic to tell us where she's going." He knelt down on the ground, and murmured a few words under his breath. The print, which was muddy and misshapen now because of the rain, was now fully formed again, and glowing a faint magenta. The pink footsteps formed a clear path through the woods, and we hurried along it before they disappeared completely.

We ran along the path, keeping care not to step on the footprints, though they didn't disappear when we accidentally did tread on them. The longer we followed the trail, the brighter and clearer the prints became. Then, they abruptly stopped in the middle of a clearing.

"What?" Claire asked, confused. "What happened?"
"I don't know," Jim murmured, casting his light all around the clearing to look for more footprints. Everyone else spread out and rummaged around for more glowing pink prints, but there were none. It was like she had suddenly vanished from the face of the planet.

"This is not good," Douxie murmured, scanning around with his magical bracelet. "There's no sign of her, anywhere. Even if she tried to fly off, she would leave some kind of trail showing us where she went. It's like she just dropped off the face of the earth!"
"Clearly, she didn't," Archie remarked, jumping off of Douxie's shoulder and sniffing the ground. "I can smell her. Rosemary, magic and a hint of blood. She's close. Very close."

A low, piercing whistle made us all flinch. At first, I thought it was the wind. Then, the wind started to hum. "Humans...how interesting," it purred, and I jumped as something breathed down my neck. Cackling echoed around the clearing, and we all took a defensive stance. "What's the matter?" the voice whispered. "Scared?"

"We aren't afraid of you," I shouted to the woods, though my body begged to differ. My knees were shaking and I could barely hold the flashlight straight. "How cute," it giggled. "A child thinks he isn't afraid." A sudden burning in my neck where Lunalis had bit me caused me to fall to my knees. Gasping, I clawed at whatever was causing me harm, my vision blotchy and tinged red with pain. It was like a hot knife was digging into my flesh, slowly carving out pieces of me.

"Foolish human," the voice hissed, now coming from one direction behind us. "I make the greatest Ventils shake in terror. I have made armies fall and kingdoms dissolve into ruin. I am fear incarnate." Everyone turned to cast their flashlights on the figure speaking, and I gaped at her striking appearance.

It was Lunalis, but not. Standing on a tree branch, she looked like an evil twin of herself. She was taller, towering almost a head over all of us, even Steve. She was bonier, so thin and weak I could easily count her ribs and see her bones prominently. Instead of fawn brown, her hair was lackluster, darker than pitch, and matted with blood and dirt. Her eyes were so red, it was like all the anger and hate and carnage had been poured into her irises.

Her animal ears were back, but they were taller and hairier, like a bat's. She had no wolf tail, and one of her shoulders was hanging at a funny angle, most likely dislocated. But there was one thing that really set her apart; it was her wings.

Two different wings; The left side a bird's, the right a bat's, that were at least seven feet long and hung limply behind her. But the most unsettling thing about her was not the strange mix of species; it was the fact that both her wings had no skin, no feathers. They were nothing but bleached, white bone. Her face was marred and burned, her whole left side blackened and her eye partially swollen shut. Her nose was deformed, and turned up at the tip. And when her lips pulled back into a smile, I could see her canines were now razor-sharp fangs that were easily as long as my pinkie finger.

And yet, in a way she was Lunalis. She had the same facial structure, with elegant cheekbones and a thin nose. Her eyes were the same rounded shape, and held the same spark of mischief and mystery I saw the first time we met. She had the same scar on their upper thigh, and her skin that wasn't burnt was still porcelain white. She was wearing the same clothes Lunalis had been the last time I'd seen her, albeit they were now ripped and worn. But when she opened her mouth and let out an ear-splitting screech, it wasn't her voice.

Gripping my ears, I tried my hardest to not rip my ears off so I didn't have to listen. Everyone else was on their knees, wailing in agony, Archie caterwauling and pawing his ears. "What the heck is going on?!" Toby yelled over the noise. "It's a supersonic screech," Archie hollered back. "Bat Ventils use it to disorient their prey before-"

"Look out!!" Steve screamed, and we all hit the deck as she swooped down to grab us. "-before they attack," Archie finished. She pulled herself back into the treeline, but she stopped shrieking long enough for us to get back to back and ready for the next attack. "How can she swoop down like that if she doesn't even have wings?!" Claire shouted, before shooting a projectile of purple magic at Lunalis.

"I have no idea," Douxie yelled, forming a blue bubble around us just before she dive-bombed us again, shrieking all the while. "I've read every single book or scroll that describes Ventils, but even I've never seen this before," Archie yelled, before shooting a large fireball into Lunalis' face just before she grabbed someone.

Howling in pain, she rolled away from us and stopped a few yards away. But, a moment later, she was up again, and she was angry. Her skeletal wings, which were bleached bone before, were now flaming and sizzling in the pouring rain. Screaming in fury, she ran towards us with the speed of a bullet, and plowed into Jim, sending him flying into the tree branches and jumping up along with him.

"Jimbo! Are you okay?!?" Toby yelled up to him.
"Yep, I'm good-Oh, no, not fine, not fine!!" He fell out of the tree and landed on his chest, and Lunalis dropped out of the tree a moment later, hovering over his limp body. Without stopping, she picked him up like he weighed less than a feather and clamped her jaws around his neck.

"Ahhhhh!!!" He screamed, wriggling and kicking at Lunalis but it did nothing. We all were frozen in horror, watching her drain the life out of our friend for a split second. "Hey! Bat Lady! That's...my...boyfriend!!" Claire howled, opening up a shadow portal underneath Lunalis. Before she could react, she had already fallen in, and Jim tumbled out of her arms and onto solid ground.

A few moments later, the portal opened up a few feet in front of us, and Lunalis went soaring out of it and ran straight into a tree. Growling and cursing, she stumbled away from the tree and shot up into its branches with a mighty jump, and started hurling fireballs at us from the cover of the leaves.

"What is this girl, part dragon?!" Toby shrieked, knocking away a stray fireball with his hammer. "Actually, it's more likely she's part phoenix," Archie shrieked, an ember setting the end of his tail aflame. "Well, then, somebody get a fire extinguisher!" Steve yelled, before charging her with his axe screaming, "DIE, CREEPER!!!" She hopped out of the tree, landed on Steve, and used the momentum as a springboard to leap across the clearing and land in the tree behind me.

"Douxie! How are we supposed to defeat her?!" I yelled, knocking her back with my serrator when she dived at me. "I have absolutely no idea," he shouted, struggling to keep his ground as they were locked in an epic magic showdown. "What have you done with Lunalis," I yelled, aiming to bring my serrator, now in blade form, down on her head. She moved so quickly, I didn't even see her leave until my blade was stuck in the mud. Pulling it out, I turned to see the Ventil, smirking, licking her fangs. 

"Looking for this?" she hissed, summoning a black ribbon into her hands. Archie gasped in horror at the enchanted choker, which was now shredded to pieces and could barely be recognized as an accessory. "You humans think you're so smart, with your creation of fire, and your armies and weapons," she sneered, letting her hands ignite into flames, disintegrating the lace entirely. "You are so oblivious to the fact that you are a mere speck--a minor inconvenience--in our eyes, that you proclaim yourself the top of the food chain. The alphas. The kings of the world."

Without turning her head, she shot a blast of bloodred magic at Claire, who was charging her, curling around her like a serpent and constricting her, crumpling her purplish armor like a tin can. "Feel the wrath of the-ack!" Toby gasped as she froze him in place, before sending him flying over the treetops. I came at her at full speed, determined to knock her into the next star system with my shield serrator, when she blew at a little flame in her palm, immediately letting it grow into a fireball coming straight for me. 

"But let me tell you something, human," she growled as I struggled to ward off the flames threatening to consume me. She walked through the fire as if it were nothing, the flames licking her skin and sizzling in the rain, making her seem even more frail and terrifying in the light. Thunder had started to rumble, and I could hear the distant BOOM of lightning from somewhere else. 

Kicking my serrator out of my hand, she bent down to grab me, hoisting me up into the air by my neck. I gasped and struggled, gripping at her bony hands that were surprisingly powerful and cut off my airways with little to no effort. Her skin was like touching fire itself, and her fingers on my neck felt like I was burning up inside a molten volcano. Her nails digging into my sensitive wounds didn't help, and carried the burning feeling through my bloodstream and into my organs, which felt like they were crumbling to ash. She was disintegrating me, from the inside out.

"You are as small and insignificant and pointless as the lowest creature on this earth," she hissed. With every word, the fire inside me grew and grew, and the pain became almost unbearable. I felt the heat inside me, ticking my stomach and making me feel lightheaded as smoke clouded my mind. I was sweating a mess, my lips parched and peeling. "You don't deserve to walk this earth. Which is why I won't remember you when I burn you alive." 

I felt hot tears streaking down my face, sizzling with the growing temperature of my skin. I could barely see straight through the burning feeling in my eyes, and what I could see wasn't pretty. Douxie and Archie were trying to put out the trees that had caught fire with her magical flames. Claire was being squeezed to death. Jim and Steve were unconscious, and Toby was probably flying above the trees in low earth orbit. 

My lungs were filling up with smoke, screaming at me to take a breath and force oxygen inside me to cleanse the toxins in my blood. The heat in my organs had become unbearable, and I could literally feel them crumbling to ash under the pressure. Her fingers dug deeper into my neck, leaving bruises and making me scream hoarsely in pain as my open wounds were charred. I felt like I was going to faint, and the last thing I saw before everything went black, was Claire, aiming her hand, glowing with purple shadow magic, straight at the creature's back.

Howling in pain, she dropped me, and immediately the feeling of burning alive faded. Gasping for air, I coughed the smoke out of my system, my skin still steaming from her touch and the cool rain beating down on me. Reeling and shrieking like an animal, back arched, I could dimly see a curved, blade of shadow sticking out of the Ventil's spine. 

"Krel! Are you okay, mate?" Douxie asked, grabbing me and hauling me up by the arm.
"Y-yes," I gasped, spitting out the taste of brimstone on my tongue. The creature howled again, and this time, the blade was gone, and her back was spewing red. "Die, humans!!" She screamed, her wings extended and burning even brighter than before. Her eyes were widened with violent lust, and just as she opened her mouth to shriek, she stopped.

Frozen in place, eyes huge, she gasped, stumbling back. And, for a split second, I could have sworn her eyes were magenta; The color of Lunalis' eyes. Then, she seemed to shake off her confusion, and tried to attack again, this time charging Douxie and I. Then, just before her claws could grab my skin, she stopped again. This time, I looked into her eyes and confirmed it. The color of cyclamen, shining in the light of the flames, and full of fear and confusion.

"NO!" the other voice hissed, grabbing at her ears and shrieking. "You cannot fight back! I am Insanity!!"
"And this....is....my....body!!!" Lunalis howled, grabbing at her ears and mentally battling the creature that had taken over her. Her eyes kept flickering from red to magenta, and her wings seemed to warp and grow tiny feathers, before shrinking and disintegrating under Insanity's fire. 

Screaming at the top of her lungs, she dug her hands into her hair, pulling and yanking at whatever was invading her body. After five minutes of her shrieking and howling, she stopped, sinking to her knees. She gripped her arms tightly, hugging herself and murmuring little things I couldn't understand. Her ears shrunk and grew hair, and her tail appeared from behind her. Her wings grew brilliant, tawny plumage, and her hair regained its magenta sheen. "Lunalis," I whispered, kneeling next to her. "I-is it...you?" Turning, eyes widened, her gaze softened as she leaned into me, soaked hair splattered all over me.

"Krel?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. 
"Y-yes," I said hoarsely, feeling her tremble against me. "It's me."
"Krel," she cried, tears running down her cheeks along with the rain. Turning and gripping my shoulders tightly, she sobbed uncontrollably into my already soaked t-shirt. "It happened," she whispered, hiccuping and making little noises. "It happened, it happened again. It happened." 

"What happened?" I asked, nudging her shoulders. She stopped moving, staying silent. "Lunalis?" I turned her face to mine, but it was no use. She was fast asleep, tears still dripping from her eyes.