Betrayal?

Samael flew in from the horizon when I called for him, blasting out a roar across the skies. He glided through the air until hovering above my square and coiling up next to me.

I leaped on to him, carried by my wings and landing on his head.

“Samael, we’re gonna need you to get us over to that demon lord! You ready?”

“Raawwr.”  I assumed that was a ‘yes.’

Uncle Jumped up here too, sitting down behind me.

“You’ll need some backup if you're going to fight.”

I turned back and nodded to him. With his strength and experience, our enemy better watch out!

Mella and Indena then jumped up here and sat behind Uncle. We'd be needing them to hold off The Actor the next time he'd get in our way.

Uncle picked up Indena before we set off though and placed her in front of him so she wouldn’t fall off.

“Eh! Don’t pick me up!” she squirmed the whole time.

“This dragon doesn’t have seatbelts,” Uncle commented. “You’re sitting in front of me until your big again.”

I’m usually the small one, so seeing her like this made me feel like I had all the freedom I wanted to do anything. Hey, maybe I could call her ‘shrimp’ now.

“Don’t feel bad, Indena.” I snickered. “He’d do the same thing for me.”

“You’re still in front of me too, Yalda.” Uncle clarified.

Dang it, he was right…oh well. Guess no matter how big I was, he'd always look out for me.

Marek and Yamin were trying to get our attention from below, so Samael lowered down and they climbed on board.

“You guys are coming too?” I asked.

It seemed like it would be safer to keep them on this side of the board, but Yamin had some logic to justify them joining us.

“Marek’s strong, but most of our forces are out in the field. He won't be able to protect me alone if things get bad.”

I was thinking that leaving them here was better, but we were the strongest players on our team, so they probably needed to stay close.

So that meant the whole gang was together, heading for a valiant spearhead assault on the demon lord.

“Alright then. Everyone, hang on!” I called out to the team before we flew out.

Samael started flying again, crossing huge distances in seconds! We’d be there in no time.

But Belphegor wasn’t pleased by our progress, opting to create a new imaginary roadblock with his powers over this land.

“You'll never reach me in time.”

The board stretched out, sending him far beyond my sight. But I still knew where he was, so we just had to keep going forward!

“Keep flying!”

Samael let out a cry, and continued to press on, clearing that artificial distance quickly.

We might have been clearing one hurdle, but another blasted our way.

BOOM!

Bombs exploded in the sky! Little bubbles scattered at quick speeds.

Uncle shielded us with his bubble shield, but Samael took a pretty hard hit of those mysterious suds.

BOOM!

BOOM!!

Those explosions weren't doing physical damage, they were a potion of some kind. The effects were clear by how sluggish Samael was getting. He was looking tired, beginning to nose dive toward the ground. He did his best to ease the fall, but this was going to be a rough landing.

Uncle braced us all by holding us together and covering us in a bubble shield.

CRASH!

The damage was significantly less, but we scattered around the ground and felt the pain of a hard touchdown.

I immediately checked to see if everyone was alright. It looked like the most major injury was a few scratches and bruises.

Samael had done good getting us this far, but we still had a long way to go if we wanted to get to the other side of the board.

“Mella, you think we can wake him up with a sleep potion?” I asked, remembering we had two left.

“He's too big for it to have much effect on him.

Samael suddenly used the last of his strength to shrink down to a much smaller size and once more act as my hair ornament. He looked like a tiny dragon now, not much different from his normal snake form.

I gave Mella a look, wondering if this size would suffice.

“That will work,” she said. “But we'll need to deal with what caused him to sleep in the first place.”

There was a damaged concrete building with rubble all around it just ahead of us. Where it came from, I had no idea. On top of the building were anti-air artillery guns loaded up with those bubble bombs of sleeping. They were waiting for us to take flight again.

Bang! Bang!

I heard small arms fire, like a pistol. A person was taking cover behind some of the buildings rubble, shooting at the demons protecting the artillery. It was Emily who held the gun. I didn't expect her to show up here...that's for sure.

“Guy's! Could use a little help here!” Emily waved us over. “Those triple A guns are going to keep you guys out of the sky if we don’t take them out!”

Our group ran over to her and took cover.

“Emily, how did you get here?” I asked.

“After we all separated at the antique shop, I ended up falling asleep by accident. When I woke up, here I was, fighting out here too.”

If her story checks out, she would have arrived on the scene within the last few seconds. I definitely didn't see her on the board when this all started. And you can't really hide on a big flat plain.

Emily provided us with cover fire while Uncle and I flew into the building. Both of us quickly dispatched each of the enemies guarding the guns. The operators were Bowalkers, so they were pretty simple to take out.

Everyone met us at the top of the building when it was all clear. Emily and Marek kept in the back to make sure nothing tailed them.

“Good show.” Emily clapped her hands. “I gotta’ say, you two are impressive to watch.”

Uncle and I had trained a lot together, so I had a good idea how to work with him. It was nice to hear a little positive affirmation on that. We still had a little ways to go, and we had to get Samael a stamina potion so we could get back up in the sky. So no time to get a swelled head.

Did stamina potions even work on snakes? Guess we'll just need to find out.

Mella went to pull out the potion…

BANG!

...but a bullet blasted straight threw the glass bottle!

All the liquid poured out on the floor, slowly fading from bright green to dull grey.

I turned to Emily, but her gun was holstered…Marek fired that bullet!

“We're not going anywhere!" Marek shouted, trembling while holding his pirate pistol.

The sudden shock of the event wore off quickly for me. Now I was just left wondering...why?

"Marek, what's going on?" I gave a serious look.

"That cat is not Mella! She never has been."

All eyes turned suddenly to the cat witch. Was it true that she wasn't the real Mella?