Ella's adventure troop.

Mellidus let Light go.

"Say sorry, Light." he growled. "We don't want to offend our guest."

"Ella... Ella!" Persephone attempted to nudge her awake in desperation. "We're in trouble - I need you to wake up for just a m-"
The flames from within the tree had spread and begun to lick away at the branch from which they were suspended, and it was losing its structural integrity fast. In addition to the cracking of burning wood, above them Persephone could hear the louder and much scarier cracking of wood tearing apart and snapping. If they didn't pull something off in the next few seconds, it would be up to sheer luck to save them from a grisly death by falling and / or being crushed.
Persephone rapidly shuffled through her thoughts, recalling what supplies she had with her. While she would have brought more given the opportunity, she had only packed a single knife, and there was no guarantee that if she dug it into the tree trunk it could hold both of them, especially given the softness of the bark. She had already used her grappling hook to anchor their rope on the branch... A gun would be of no use, and while she hadn't checked it was likely the dridder had disabled or entirely disassembled it. Her flamethrower would obviously be very counterproductive here. A potion or two would help after they fell, but only if they survived the impact to begin with. Tape? Useless. Bandages? Pointless. Pens and pencils? Why had she even brought them...

Light sighed "Fine!" She flew over to the shadow gel, "Ahem, i'm sooo sorry for shouting at you." She said in a sarcastic manner. "I'm just sooo sorry I just feel awfull." She added. "I don't know what came over me, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't say sorry." She continued, smiling as she was saying so.

With Light right in front of her, Rin Tei just couldn't hold back any longer. "That's okay," she said to the fairy. "You can make it up to me by letting me eat you up."

And with that, a dozen shadow hands shot up from below Light and attempted to grab on to her legs and waist, trying to pull her down inside the shadows. An even larger number of hands also assaulted Damon, attempting to restrain his movement and prevent him from using those pesky flashbangs of his, and just for good measure, Exilon, who had been distracted listening to music again, was also pinned down to the ground.

"Sure, why no- WAIT WHA!" Light shouted as the shadow hands grabbed on both of her legs, then she noticed that more hands tried to get Damon and Exilon too. She felt like she was sinking into the ground, but she smiled. "Hey, you've made a big mistake trying to grab me, i'd suggest you let go of me... Why do you think i'm called Light!?" Saying that she charged up electricity but instead of it showing on the outside of her body, the electricity was charging inside of her body making her shine brighter and brighter. If I get out of this... I hope Mellidus can forgive me if we lose this "Ally" She thought to herself.

"Ahh! Not more light!!" Rin Tei shouted. She retreated inside the shadows and moved away from the light, her glow also eradicating the shadow hands that held onto her. Exilon was still trapped, however, and Damon still under assault.

Ella slipped herself off of Persephone's back. The dridders hadn't stopped their assault even though the fire was raging through the tree. Ella's legs and arms were weak but she mustered up enough strength to take Persephone's hand and climb down the tree. She didn't talk or smile or make a noise because it would burn up too much energy. As she made it to the ground she collapsed for real this time.

"There! We must bring the neko back alive!" the dridders yelled as they began to climb out of the burning tree temple.



"Wait stop!" Mellidus yelled at the shadow creature. "Don't do this!"

"Waahh~ Shad- but I... thought you were nice... now... eating? But... uh..."

Faran shed a tear of sadness at the sudden violence going on before her. Mort saw this tear roll down her cheek, and was angered. The shadow gel had not attempted to restrain him, and he would make her regret that. He silently walked up to Exilon, who was still trapped by shadow hands. The eye hidden behind his bandages glowed a bright blood red. He clenched his fist, and his hand was quickly engulfed in pitch black flame. He reached out and grabbed onto one of the arms that were restraining Exilon. Instead of his fingers going straight through, he was able to grip her shadow flesh, and the unnatural dark fire that raged around his hand would lick at her supernatural flesh, and burn it like it would any other.

"Thats enough! I know you feel this, shadow creature! Much more painful than light isn't it? Release them now, or I'll cause you more pain than you can possibly imagine!"

Damon simply let the arms overtake him. "Every time i try to be nice, try to trust people, something bad happens, every time I offer a helping hand, it gets snapped off at the wrist. Kindness is crippling. "He growled to himself.

Mellidus watched as Damon was being pulled down by the shadow hands. He ran over to the naga and reached out his hand.

"You moron what are you doing!? Do you want to die!?"

Mortis saw that Damon was still in trouble. It seems she needed some more persuasion. The raging black inferno spread from his hand, down the length of her shadow arm.

"LET GO."

Damon looked up at the badger neko, a jagged grin running along his jaw. "What i want doesn't matter, never did, never does, never will." He reached out his torn hand to grasp Mellidus' enormous digits. "Besides when ever i get what i want it is indirect, messed up, and flawed. I wished for life before, a long time ago, and to achieve that i got a parasite living in my skull. I still have blood flowing through my veins, but it is a half life. If i wished for death, and got my wish, the same would probably occur. I would die, but not escape the horrors, no, i would be tossed into even greater pain." Damon chuckled.

Rin Tei cried out in pain, as Mort's abilities were indeed harming her. When he further pressed his attack, all of the shadow arms in the area retreated back into the ground. Rin Tei, who was hidden behind one of the trees in the area, making sure if someone used a light attack that she'd still be safe in the shadow of the tree, had tears in her eyes from the pain. She couldn't understand how the man had hurt her. She couldn't understand why everyone was so upset. Did she do something wrong? What was it? Attacking them? Or lying to them? Or both?

All these questions ran through her mind like a hail of bullets, and she began sobbing more loudly. It was so much easier to just stick with befriending people when she couldn't hurt them and they couldn't hurt her. She'd had it with this dridder forest. She sank into the ground and disappeared, heading back towards her home where the ghosts were.


Exilon, freed from the shadowgel's grasp, nodded to Mort in gratitude, then immediately took her staff from her coat. Using her sensitive ears, she managed to pick up on Rin Tei's sobbing and ran towards the tree she'd been hiding behind. Exilon got there just in time to watch Rin Tei disappear.

"Listen, I know that altruism doesn't go far here, but every once and a while you find someone who does return your kindness and that person is worth waiting for! If I didn't believe that I would've gave up on trying to return myself to normal. So don't go taking the quitters route on me now!"

"It's only the quitters route if the journey ends there." Damon grinned somewhat.

Exilon returned to the group holding up a note that had her 'artist's impression' of Rin Tei on it with an arrow leading away from her, hoping they'd understand the meaning.

"Hm, what the hell is that?" Mellidus didn't understand what Exilon was trying to communicate.

"Light! Since you caused this mess scope out the area and make sure that girl is gone!" Mellidus ordered. What a night this had been. He was tired . He just wanted his his wife back.

"This is horrible. I have to hurry and find Ella before I start to loose my mind again. Lord knows these people won't." he mumbled to himself.

"I am going off to hunt! I suggest you all do the same. Try not to die."

Mellidus stalked about the area.

"Where;s all the damn food?" He roared. He'd been out there for two hours. But something that was not him had scared the food away. That's when he saw the smoke. A large fire was raging somewhere and it was spreading fast.

"I better warn the..." As Mellidus was about to turn and go tell the others the wind blew and scent caught his nose.

"Ella!" he roared. Her smell was coming from the same place the fire was coming from. He wanted to go back to the camp and tell the others. It would be foolish to rush into this rescue without anyone knowing where he would be but if he waited any long there might not be an Ella left to rescue.

"I'm coming Ella!" As to alert the others to his location he let out a mighty roar into the sky that could be heard for miles around.

(BTW, I've recently made some changes to Exilon's bio. Should I repost it, edit it on the first page of the thread, or leave it and not apply the changes I made to the Exilon in this RP?)

Exilon had stayed behind near the campfire they'd made. Not hearing much sounds of the forest, she'd already known there wasn't going to be much to eat in the area. Exilon's ear's then picked up Mellidus' roar. Whatever it was that was making him make that sound, it wasn't good. Without much concern for herself or anyone else in the group, she stood up and dashed off in the direction the sound had come from. After all, as big as he was, Ella would be delighted in anyone who kept him safe for her.

In the heat of the moment, part of Persephone had wanted to start a fire that would spread wildly and lay waste to the dridders' forest. On the other hand, it went against her moral code to cause such wanton destruction for her own emotional satisfaction. Whatever she might have preferred, though, the fire had grown much larger than she had meant for it to be. It had consumed most of the foliage above her and Ella and was aggressively eating away at the neighboring trees. Branches were falling one after the other and the shade of the canopy was being replaced by the thick darkness of smoke.
Her adrenaline rush spent, Persephone tried desperately to carry Ella to safety but had no hope of outrunning the angry dridders descending upon them. With every second her legs grew wobblier and it became harder to move the unconscious neko. Her bare feet were numb and bloody from rubbing against the bark, rocks, and thorns covering the forest floor. She knew it was a lost cause to continue fleeing like this, but an irrational urge to try her best to survive kept her going.
She thought about abandoning Ella and running to save herself. It would be entirely immoral after Ella had saved her life moments earlier, but then again, if she kept trying to carry her they would both be doomed. Would Ella want her to save herself if it came to this? Persephone was unsure. What she was sure about was that it would tear her up inside if she went on living knowing she had abandoned her friend to die helplessly. With her last newfound shred of resolve she dragged Ella's body along the ground inch by inch.

Just as she knew she was about to give out entirely, Persephone heard a thundering roar from something that was definitely not a dridder. She also heard a distinctly non-insectoid trampling coming through the forest from the opposite direction from the dridder nest. Could this possibly be a rescue?

"Huh?" Light looked from a distance, she was doing the job of scanning the area like she was asked to do... and wasn't going to screw it up either, but she heared the loud growl and she knew who it belonged to, then she saw Exilon take off towards Mellidus so she flew back to the camp. "Hey guys! I think we should follow Mellidus! Something is going on over there!" She called out to the group like she was now their leader. She dashed off to where Mellidus was, hoping do to good this time.

Mort heard the Light call out to the group. Perhaps it was a good idea to follow Melidus. The sooner they found Ella the better.

The first thing Mellidus saw was Ella laying on the ground the next thing he saw was an angry group of dridders charging towards him.

"Stay back!" He roared. He lunged at the group and began to fight. He fought through a couple dridders but soon they started to over whelm him.

"Ella!" He roared.


"Hm..." Ella said waking up. "Did someone call my name?"

Damon began rather slowly slithering in the direction of the growl "would you mind fixing my hands? I am unable to fight without a weapon." In a response to that large spines emerged from his wrists to curve forward over his hands, which remained mangled. He stared at them rather dismally. "thanks for nothing." Damon began to pick up the pace, if he got there too late odds are he would regret it.

Exilon, with her natural agility as a neko, managed to get to the site of the fire just after Mellidus arrived. She saw the flames and they caused her spirit to ignite as well. Their intensity made a feeling of excitement rise up from within her and she couldn't hold herself back. She got out her staff and transformed it into an electric guitar as the construct insruments appeared in the air around her; a drum set and a few other guitars. Exilon began to play some of the loudest, eardrum-assaulting rock and roll music she'd ever played in her life, which would likely affect everyone in the area with ears unless she was stopped, meaning both the group of dridders as well as Mellidus and Ella, and anyone else that happened to show up, unfortunately.