Her whole body was covered in pain and making it near impossible to move a muscle. The last thing she remembered was being blasted by an explosion of lighting from Xadi while he was using his Halloween costume of a wooden-bull monster that Marcus tried to block using himself as a s.h.i.+eld.

She inspected her surroundings and saw her friends laying down on the street. Marcus was twitching with pain, Lilith looked like she was sleeping with her face down on the floor and Evlin herself was barely able to move.

Daren was sitting with Ellie standing by his side and they both were looking at some kind of transparent figure floating slightly above the ground.

The streets were covered with pieces of white crystals and curious bystanders looking from a distance recording with their devices, very similar to when they defeated the possessed spider, but this time there were also several pieces of wood.

"They... They did it!!?" Evlin said with surprise as she understood what happened. While she was out, her teammates had defeated her opponent for her. Evlin could barely believe it.

Her niece turned around and spotted her aunt looking at her and quickly rushed to her side with tears appearing on her eyes.

"AUNT EVIEEEEE!!!" Ellie screamed as she pounced on Evlin like a panther attacking a deer. They both feel on the ground and Ellie began to squish her aunt with all her strength.

"El... Lie!! You're... Crus.h.i.+ng... Me!! I can't... Breath!!!" Evlin said as her niece's arms kept locking her neck on a tight grip.

"I thought I had lost you!!! I was so scared!! You were on the ground and wouldn't wake up!! I didn't know what to do, and that bull kept attacking us, and my hands grew mouths, and it was so gross!!!!"

"Air... Please... Air!!!"

"Ah! Sorry!" Ellie said as she realized her aunt's face turning blue and finally released her hug. Evlin finally tried to breathe a little and looked at Ellie while raising an eyebrow.

"What was that last part? A mouth in your hands?" She said.

"Yeah!! Yeah!! And not only that!! I also became a weapon like the Marceus guy from your story! And I could eat a ball of lightning, and became a crossbow, and we shredded the monster tree! Isn't that right Daren?" Ellie kept trying to sum up how the battle had gone, but as soon as she turned around her expression changed "Daren...?"

The man who was fighting by her side a few moments ago had joined the rest of Evlin's teammates and was now lying on the ground completely knocked out.

"Daren!!!" Ellie screamed as she started to run towards him.

Evlin looked at her surroundings and realized that the same thing had happened all over again. All of her friends got injured trying to help her. If she hadn't rushed out like a crazy woman and tried to actually come up with a proper plan they could have prepared better for this fight. But because they were trying to catch up with her, everyone had no idea how to approach the situation.

Evlin always knew she was reckless, but something about her recent actions were causing more damage than ever to those around her.She started to realize that if this continued, she might end up becoming a greater danger to her team than Mia herself.

"Aunt Evie!!" Ellie shouted bringing Evlin back to reality "What do we do??"

"Ah! Right!" Evlin looked at the pieces of wood and crystal scattered around her and tried to get enough to make a small gauntlet for her right arm. She absorbed the magic inside the crystal fragments and attempted to heal her friends.

"I'm so sorry guys! This is all my fault!" She tried to apply healing magic on Daren, Lilith, and Marcus, as well as trying to heal herself a bit, but nothing was happening.

"Aunt Evie...? What's wrong?" Ellie asked wondering why her magic wasn't acting.

Evlin herself was wondering why her power wasn't working and remembred about what happened the first time she ever faced Xadi and how it took a long time for her body to fully recover due to a small rock-paper-scissor aspect of how her magic operated.

"Oh, that's right! Healing magic doesn't work against electric magic..." Evlin lamented.

"Then... What should we do?" Ellie asked as she looked at her aunt with worry.

"Evlin...?" The two of them suddenly heard a voice coming from the small alley nearby and spotted Chloe sticking her head out with Lance in hands "Is... Is it safe to come out?"

"Chloe!!!" Evlin said with surprise as she almost forgot why she had engaged in this fight with Xadi to begin with, "Are you ok?"

"Me...?" Chloe asked as she viewed Evlin's state with many injures and burns all over her body "I think a better question is if YOU are ok..."

Evlin took a small glance at herself and realized that she indeed had taken quite a beating and would probably be on the ground as well if her body wasn't fused with Sphinx. There was no way a regular person could have sustained the amount of damage she had gone through.

"I'll live... Don't mind me... Can you help me with my friends? They need to go to the hospital as soon as possible!"

"Huh... Sure... I will fetch my car."

"Thanks, Chloe!" Evlin said. She tried to flap her wings to see if she would be able to carry them herself, but she was still extremely injured from the fight. If her body wasn't half-griffin right now, she would also need to be carried.

Chloe then returned Lance for Ellie to carry and took another quick look at Evlin's golden form, still trying to process if this whole thing was a dream or not, and finally left to grab her vehicle while softly whispering "I can't believe this is happening..."

"Ellie, where is Eclipe...?" said the winged woman.

"Ah! We got separated because he couldn't fit in the alley... I haven't seen him since..." Ellie answered, which made Evlin fill herself with worry.

"... Wait... Are you saying that there is a huge black lion roaming the city right now with no one to watch after him?"

"... Huh..."

"Ugh... Never mind... We'll find him later..." Evlin said trying to avoid getting more problems to solve and began to gather more of the scattered remains of Xadi's monster body.

She found a piece of what used to be his monster arm and used modeling magic to turn it into another gauntlet. Immediately after, she touched the ground and started to use her geokinesis to make the earth bring the remaining pieces towards her.

She had so much wood right now that she could make her full armor again as well as three copies of her old crossbow.

She then looked at Ellie and thought about something. Evlin had been making quite a few mistakes lately, but Ellie had not, and she deserved to gain something for it.

"Hey, Ellie..."

"Huh!?"

"... You saved us... Didn't you?" Evlin said while staring at the pile of wood in front of her.

"Eh...? No... Not really... I just used a bit of your magic and got lucky... Daren was the one who beat the monster..." Ellie answered with a shy expression while Lance kept poking her nose on her arms.

Evlin saw the uncertainty on her face. It looked like Ellie still didn't believe in herself as much as she should. Evlin felt the young girl needed a small boost in her self-esteem.

"This is for you..." Evlin said while pointing at the wood.

"Eh...?"

"It's time for you to get your own staff. Pick a weapon and I will make it for you. It can be whatever you want."

"A staff for me??" The girl said while the baby she was carrying pulled her cheek.

Evlin honestly didn't think Ellie needed a staff since she displayed the ability to use magic with her bare hands earlier, but she imagined getting a small reward from her aunt would help her start believing in herself a bit more. On top of that, they still weren't sure on how she was doing magic by herself, so it would be better to have a staff close by just in case they needed it.

"It can be anything I want...?" Ellie asked while approaching the pile.

"It's your weapon, your choice. Modeling magic is originally made for this kind of situation after all..." Evlin rea.s.sured.

Ellie began to think of what would fit her best. She wondered if she should just go for a crossbow like her aunt, after all, her magic was literally based around copying things, shouldn't her weapon be a copy as well?

But then she also thought that her aunt managed to pick a weapon on her own when she chose her crossbow. If she truly wanted to be like her aunt, she realized it would fit better to try and make her own path as well, pick her own original weapon.

'Keep it simple' were her aunt's words. What did she need right now? Something to keep her aunt safe, something to protect her family, something that would fit with her size, something easy to carry and that could be used to fight Mia.

Maybe a s.h.i.+eld? She quickly rejected that. A s.h.i.+eld would be too big and clunky to maneuver in the heat of a battle. It needed to be something more appropriate for her.

"Ah!! I got it!" She finally figured it out and told her aunt what she wanted.

Evlin heard her wish and began her blacksmithing.

The people watching close by on the streets observed as Evlin performed her work as if it was some kind of spectacle.

She used her modeling magic to gather some of the pieces of the wood and modeled them into a small object with an oval shape glued to Ellie's arm that she could use to block physical attacks, a buckler.

"Are you sure that this is what you want?" Evlin asked as she looked at her niece carrying a small portable wooden s.h.i.+eld on one arm and the young Lance on the other. She felt something was still missing for that to be an ideal prize.

Ellie then approached her and asked for something else, showing that she still wasn't finished. She requested something that could represent the bond she shared with her aunt and symbolized both of their abilities.

Evlin listened to her wish once again and placed her palm over the buckler to perform another spell. She gathered grains of sand using earth magic and changed them into diamonds with modeling magic, and with her geokinesis, began to spread them over the buckler's surface. Ellie's weapon now was covered with reflective pieces of green diamond made by her aunt's magic, like a mirror s.h.i.+eld, a symbol of her affinity.

Lance was staring at the mirror s.h.i.+eld with very curious eyes. He either really liked how pretty it was or was wondering if it was something he could eat. 

Evlin then took the rest of the wood and made a bigger gauntlet for her arm, as well as a pair of grieves, a necklace, a pauldron, and a belt. She had more channeling wood than she ever had before, enough for her and Ellie. 

If it wasn't for Evlin's half-monster form, the two of them would be looking like a knight and her squire right now due to their matching wooden equipment.

Evlin considered releasing her fusion and turning back to normal, but the moment she did so her pain would probably become unbearable due to her injuries, so she decided to stay like this for a little longer.

Chloe finally returned on a red Mercedes and began to help Evlin put her friends on her backseat.

"I'll take them to the hospital... Will... Will you be ok...?" She said while taking a look at Evlin once again. No matter how many times she stared at her the doctor still couldn't believe that Evlin's golden form wasn't some kind of costume of make-up.

"I'll be fine... I have some unfinished business to deal with... Please take care of them." Evlin said while Chloe kept trying to poke her fur to check if it was real.

"Ok... Just remember your promise! You gotta explain everything to me later!" Chloe said as she entered her car.

"Thank you, doctor Chloe! Say hi to Claire for me!" Ellie said while she and her aunt finally watched as the woman drove away with her the rest of the group and took them to a hospital.

Evlin wondered if all this craziness would make Chloe consider to forbid her daughter, Claire, from hanging out with Ellie again. If Evlin caused her niece to lose her best friend, she would never forgive herself. 

"So... What now...?" asked Ellie.

"What now indeed..." Evlin herself wondered. She began to make a mental list of what to do next. Save her family, find the demons, bury Mia in a hole and leave her there to rot... She now also needed to wait for her friends to recover and find Eclipse.

Evlin needed to start properly thinking about these things. Her mistakes were causing others to get the short end of the stick. If she wanted to show Ellie that her niece could trust her, then Evlin needed to actually use her head like a real leader.

Many citizens were also starting to come closer towards them, making Evlin worry about having to come up with some nonsensical excuse to justify what was going on right now. She felt she didn't have the mindset for this kind of thing at the moment and decided to simply leave with Ellie and Lance.

While Evlin thought about that, she turned around and saw something that might help her a little bit, the small figure that had been removed from the wooden monster's body and was now floating around without a care in the world after being knocked out. 

"Aunt Evlin...?" Ellie said as she noticed the look on her aunt's eyes, staring at the unconscious spirit.

"Ellie... What do you say we have a little talk with Mr. frog over here?"

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