The Island of Wonder

The evening trainings turned into a daily routine – after Soi was back from the hunt and the girls had a dinner, she and Nicole sparred for an hour or two. Thanks to that, in a span of just one week Nicole grew visibly more confident with using the water form.

During one of those sparring sessions, unbeknownst to the two, a pair of eyes locked in on them, hiding in a bush on the edge of the forest clearing.

Nicole was currently dominating, pushing Soi back under the myriad of flying kicks and fists. Then, at the first opportunity, Soi quickly jumped to the side and behind the other girl, landing crouched low on her legs and one arm, the other one with claws ready to strike. Nicole didn't have enough time to turn around when she felt a cold, sharp tip touching her side. Before the claws could bite into her flesh properly, she turned her body around that place into water for a second, allowing the claws to go in and then turned back instantly. But what she saw weren't Soi's claws but a wooden arrow sticking into the ground in front of her after leaving her water insides.

"What the fuck?" Nicole stared at the item.

Soi stood next to her. "I saw it flying over my head, right when I was about to hit. Good thing I stopped in the last moment." The catgirl turned to the direction from where it flew, squinting at the green, unmoving bushes.

Someone is out there, trying to snipe me.

Nicole's body tensed. The spar was over, the real threat was present. She picked up the arrow – it was a simple one with an iron tip and dark red feathers on the back. She saw similar being used by many people before, the Bee caravan or the Narakai soldiers.

Meanwhile Soi was already checking the bushes and the forest around the clearing. Her fists were clenched and claws ready to lunge at the aggressor. Used to search for her prey through the footprints on the damp tropical ground or flat, stomped grass, Soi's eyes scanned for any clues. It wasn't long before she saw stamps of simple boots leading from the bush somewhere into the forest.

"Found anything?" Nicole said from the clearing.

Soi nodded. "Yeah, it seems whoever it was, they didn't even try to leave unnoticed. We should follow while the marks are fresh."

"What if it's a trap? To lead us away from here?"

"The girls can defend the house for a bit, don't you think? We have an emergency here."

Nicole glanced at the house she built, Annie and Iloe inside and with no idea of what is going on.

"We should at least tell them. I will be right back." Nicole said as she set off running inside. As promised, she was back to Soi quickly. "Alright, let's go."

The girls followed the footprints at a quick pace, going further and further from the forest clearing.

"All steps are far from each other and imprinted deeper in the soil than usual. Whoever it was, they were running." Soi commented. "And in a straight line, mostly. It's either something strange going on or that someone didn't even try to hide their way."

Occam's razor says one thing, but my guts tell a different story.

"Just don't relax too much." Nicole whispered, gripping her spear ready.

After twenty minutes, the girls stop in front of a river. It's fast but thin and shallow, nothing dangerous. When they quickly got to the other side, Soi stopped.

"The steps are gone." She looks along the edge of the water. "Absolutely nothing."

"So that's it? Anything we can do from here?"

"Except for just exploring and hoping to find them again? Not really."

"Fuck. Someone is out there and we can't do fucking anything." Nicole grunts. "How can we now go out at all? We were lucky today, but what if they attack from behind during a fight with monsters? Or Annie? She is basically defenseless when alone."

Soi rolled her eyes. "You really are worrying about us all, huh? We just need to be smart about it. Let's go back for now."

Now the girls traced their own steps the opposite way.

"I can't just peacefully sleep now. What if they come into the house at night?" Nicole continued to spiral.

"Haven't you made a lock on the front door?"

"Yeah, right…" Nicole took a deep breath. "I need to calm down."

Back in the house, all four of them sat around the table on the first floor. As usual, Iloe who was in charge of cooking for the team, made everyone some tea out of herbs she picked up around the forest.

"We need to do something about it." Nicole sighed, trying to relax on the chair.

"First of all, let's think who it might be." Annie nodded.

"Who? Antihum, probably." Nicole shrugged, saying as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "We don't really have enemies here, with the Lamia issue being resolved."

"What if it's a Voru'kai assassin? Like, the Queen doesn't want anyone else to get your help and knowledge." Iloe said as she sipped her tea.

"Mm… Nah." Annie shook her head. "They wouldn't let us out of the Hive, if that was the case. It would make more sense if they took us to prison and tortured to get as much as possible of info out of us."

Iloe imagined a bloody scene in a dark prison cell and swallowed hard. "M-maybe you are right."

"I think we can safely say the same thing about the rest of the tribes or basically anyone interested in the knowledge from the Earth." Soi concluded.

"This leaves us with Antihum as the main culprit…" Nicole repeated her theory. "Maybe they sent an agent to test our current strength? After all, before we got our powers we were almost completely defenseless compared to you, with your innate abilities." She glanced at the catgirls. "What if they don't know what exactly we are able to do? So it's kinda like a spy in the first place and a killer in the second?"

"It doesn't change much." Soi frowned a little, her voice calm and serious. "It's a threat and we need to get rid of it. We have to set more traps around and be wary of our surroundings."

Nicole brightened up. "Right, traps. I completely forgot that we can make something way better than just holes!"

"And that would be?"

Everyone looked at Nicole with interest as she started making and assembling some mechanism. Soon, on the table in front of her lay a smaller version of a bear trap.

"Here. The real one is bigger, though."

Nicole made a wooden brick and, hanging it above the trap, released it. As soon as the wood made contact, the spiky maw clenched with a metallic sound, snapping the brick in two. Both catgirls looked at it with wide eyes.

"D-damn… wouldn't want to be the one to step on this thing." Soi muttered under her nose, astonished.

With a satisfied smirk, Nicole absorbed the used materials back into her inner storage. Love the looks on the faces of natives every time I show them something new, hehe.

Annie coughed into her fist to attract attention of the rest. "There is one more thing I wanted to tell you about. I was doing some tests today and I think I got enough hold on my spores to be able to do something I was thinking about."

The girl stood up from the chair, flying into the air, her feet hovering slightly above the floor. She raised her hand and a crossbow appeared from under the table. She moved her finger and the weapon triggered, though it was not loaded so nothing happened. Annie raised another hand and a knife rose up a few meters in front of her. It followed moves of her hand, furiously slashing the air.

Annie beamed with a proud smile. "I still can't control anything too far from me, but this should be enough to be useful!"

Soi smiled back at her. "That's great!"

Nicole felt something in her chest tighten. If Annie will be joining them for real, it will increase the level of danger she is in. Yet she knew she couldn't shield her friend from all the dangers of the island, so Nicole just smirked, holding her hands out, fingers mimicking two pistols.

"A living, flying machine gun. Hold and shoot with one spores and reload with others. Now I am getting jealous."

Annie's eyes went wide. "Ooh! Can you make me a cowboy hat or something?"

All four of them chatted for a bit more before retreating to their respective rooms for the night. Early in the next morning, Nicole and Soi went to set the new kind of traps. Nicole didn't have much of iron left in her storage, resulting in only four being placed. They covered them lightly with some leaves, weightless enough to not pull the trigger. The bear traps were left at some of the bushes around, somewhere where the intruder would willingly step in the first place.

Annie was training her aim against a wooden target on the clearing. For now, together with herself, she only could lift two crossbows at once, the second one was made by Nicole a while ago for Iloe's first line of self defence, except the potions, now given to Annie.

"Hey, I have something for you." Nicole stepped to the girl's side. On her open palm, she was holding a thin, slightly curved edge. It was around a meter long and had a sharp edge all around.

Annie placed one of the crossbows on the ground and used the spores to pick up the blade. It was light enough to move swiftly yet had enough weight to build up a momentum for a powerful cut.

"Wow, this is so cool! Reminds me of some character from a game, can't remember the name…" The girl hovered closer to Nicole to hug her tight. "Thanks! Though now I need to train twice as much, hah."

"Yep. Just thought it may be better than your knife from yesterday."

Annie pulled back a little to look her friend in the eyes. "But don't you need the materials for traps?"

Nicole shook her head. "It's okay. This is an experiment, I didn't use steel for the blade." She winked mysteriously before taking a few steps back. "Have fun. I have more trainings with Soi."

Annie got back to shooting the target, now with even more enthusiasm than before.