"We've got this in the bag," Mikayla smiled, staring at the tan-grey holographic hawk that was now perched on Lydia's arm.

  "This is Ivory," Lydia introduced them. "He was one of the domesticated hawks raised back in my village. He's been guarding my family for three generations," She reached up to stroke the hardlight hawk's plumage, and it let out a slight noise of affection. "Once I get him up to maximum size, he'll have no trouble tracking down the Moon Rabbit,"

  "Brilliant," Nya smiled. "Alright, set him loose. The rest of us will split up and search on foot. Let's go!"

  "Hang on, you can't just -" Irin started, but Nya was already speeding away, Moonlight Rose forming around her. "Wait!" she protested, chasing after her.

  Mikayla and Lydia watched them go, then glanced at each other. "Maybe we should compromise and say teams of two?"

  "Uh, yeah sure," Lydia looked a bit grumpy. "I, um, actually had another plan in mind to catch the Moon Rabbit. It'll probably still work with just the two of us,"

  "Sure, shoot,"

  ". . I don't have any guns?"

  Mikayla facepalmed. "No, it's a - damn colloquialisms. Tell me,"

  More tan-coloured light flowed from Lydia's Core Controller, forming up into her Armour Core. What looked like a thick and armoured holographic cloak hanging from her neck unfolded, becoming a massive pair of wings. "I can fly too, with my Marauder Armour. Between me and Ivory, we can herd the Rabbit once we find it. Drive it straight towards you,"

  Mikayla couldn't help but be amazed, wanting to pore over the perfectly detailed feathery wings. She remembered how strange it had felt when she and Nya had formed the Moonlight Knight, to have the phantom of an extra limb. And Lydia had gotten so proficient with Core-projected wings that she could fly? The only other person she'd seen capable of that was Asika, and as a faerie she had a natural advantage.

  Mistaking her shock for apprehension, Lydia blustered, "I've been trained for this, hunting prey by driving them towards the beaters is a tradition in my clan. Kaijus don't attack Companion Cores like they do people, the Moon Rabbit will run away from Ivory while I coordinate from a higher altitude. I can do it,"

  "That is so cool," Mikayla murmured.

  "Oh! Th . . anks?"

  "Sounds like a great plan. Let's do it,"

  Lydia smiled, a small and hesitant thing. "Alright. Um. Looks like the other teams mostly headed north. Let's focus on the south,"

  <=====}—o

  The Black Knight stomped onward, trailing after the two winged forms of Marauder and Ivory. On foot and weighed down by its bulk, Mikayla had no hope of keeping pace with them, especially when they were all staying at size one to conserve Mana. But that was fine, she didn't need to.

  "Truly impressive," Nocturnus murmured as she focused on Marauder. "To think that Engraving techniques have come so far,"

  "Her Core Controller was weird," Mikayla recounted its oddities.

  "Hm. I'm afraid I have no answers for you, lass,"

  The Black Knight trudged onward, Mikayla taking the opportunity to practice going at the exact maximum speed that would not start eating into her Stamina bar.

  Scanning the horizon, she could see other Armour Cores in the distance. Skyward Grasscutter was bouncing through the treetops. The size changing made it difficult to pinpoint exactly how far away Keldryn was.

  The Black Knight entered a region of densely congested trees, the massive pines that filled the Hunting Ground clustered together into a thicket. Mikayla strained her eyes, trying to keep track of Marauder and Ivory through the foliage.

  It was really amazing and really annoying that these trees were so tall that they towered over the Black Knight even at size ten. At normal size they were impossible giants.

  They continued on in that way for a few minutes, Mikayla watching the two fliers circle around and search for the Moon Rabbit.

  But then a squawk of distress was broadcast into her helmet as she saw Marauder spontaneously fall from the sky.

  Forgetting her Stamina consumption, Mikayla charged through the trees towards the place where Marauder had fallen. Branches and shrubs were bashed aside, the undergrowth trampled by the Black Knight's mighty footsteps.

  She could see through the trees, the sandy glow that was Ivory's hardlight body diving through the branches, only to abruptly change direction with a panicked squawk and hit the ground.

  A few moments later, Mikayla arrived in a small clearing and found that both Marauder and Ivory were pinned to the ground, limbs splayed, struggling but seemingly unable to get up.

  Of course. The Moon Rabbit used gravity magic. If it could make people lighter to trap them in mid-air, why hadn't they anticipated that it might make people heavier to trap them on the ground?

  Mikayla looked around, but there was no sign of the sneaky Kaiju. Her footsteps must have scared it off.

  She advanced slowly, and felt it when she crossed the boundary of the gravity trap; her foot suddenly slammed to the ground, and no amount of shifting could lift it. She dragged her boot out of the effect, groaning from the exertion.

  "Find the Rabbit," Nocturnus suggested. "It must be nearby to still be maintaining this trap field,"

  "Right," Mikayla nodded, raising her foot to step towards the edge of the clearing.

  She found herself unable to put it back down.

  Her other foot had left the ground, and she was floating into the air. Lydia and Ivory were rising too, wings beating at the air and trying to reorient themselves.

  In the corner of her vision, Mikayla saw a dusty grey blur.

  The Moon Rabbit lunged out of the undergrowth, homing in unerringly on Marauder. Milky light coalesced around its head as it struck, launching through the field of reversed gravity without any issue.

  Mikayla swung, trying to intercept it, but she was too far away. The beast struck Marauder dead centre and shattered it in a single blow, spitting Lydia out into mid-air. Gravity normalised just as quickly, and they all fell, but the Moon Rabbit somehow ricocheted off the air and came back around, jaws opening wide to snap down on Lydia.

  Mikayla couldn't do anything to help within melee range. But she had ranged options. "Psychic Bolt!" she cast, and a ball of light flew from her hand and struck the bunny, knocking it off course and sending it skidding into the dirt.

  Unfortunately, while she'd saved her classmate from the monster, Lydia was still falling. There was nothing Mikayla could do but hope the struggling Ivory could recover in time to catch his master.

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  But instead Lydia's cloak opened up and a huge pair of feathery brown wings, speckled with white, emerged. Beating them against the air, she arrested her fall and glided gently towards the ground.

  Mikayla was so busy being relieved that she wasn't paying attention to her own landing. The Black Knight landed with a thump that shook her all over. She shrank back to normal size to regain her balance, rushing over to Lydia while scanning for the Moon Rabbit.

  However, the monster had vanished into the undergrowth. Lydia circled overhead, scanning their surroundings, while Mikayla waited.

  "I don't think it's coming back," the human finally assessed.

  Lydia landed, her wings folding back under her cloak. She looked away, keeping her head turned from Mikayla's gaze. "Please . . please don't tell anyone about that,"

  "Huh?" Mikayla scrutinised her. "Oh, are you embarrassed that you got sneak attacked like that? It's really not that big a deal,"

  A strange noise escaped Lydia's throat, which it took Mikayla a minute to realise was more like a bird call than a gasp. "Uh, no, not that. I mean, about me, being, um . ." Her cloak rustled nervously.

  "Being what? I didn't know there were bird beastkin, is that a big deal?" Mikayla mulled that over. ". . Wait, is this a fantasy racism thing? Are bird-kin looked down on or something?"

  "Bird -" Lydia turned to face her, confused, then realisation filled her eyes. "Oh, right. You're Stranded. You have no idea what a harpy is,"

  Harpy. Mikayla's brain immediately spat out several facts; half-bird, half-woman monsters of Greek mythology, adapted into D&D, usually old and ugly crones, known for being violent and greedy . . She looked at Lydia again. Well, that was clearly wrong. "Okay, I need to tell Asika that I've got another bug in my System translation," she muttered.

  "What was that?"

  "Your race name, the System's translating it into something inaccurate and unflattering," Mikayla settled on. "Doesn't matter. Is being a harpy bad?"

  Lydia winced. "Well, no, not inherently, but, uh,"

  A great commotion interrupted them, a rumbling noise that heralded a massive form bursting through the trees. Mikayla instinctively conjured her shield and held it over her head, peering through its translucency to identify the new threat, while Lydia patted her cloak down and reformed Marauder.

  It was a horse.

  Not a Kaiju. A huge, glowing horse woven from crimson mana and coated in golden armour, with an Armour Core astride it that she recognised as Geum's. A great orange lance was clutched in his hands, and it seemed to be projecting a cone around him that shredded the trees before they could impede him.

  He charged off in the rough direction that they had seen the Moon Rabbit flee without paying any attention to them.

  Panting alerted them to Sekki, who wasn't even clad in Armour, running up to them. He clutched at his hips, tail only barely staying out of the dirt. "Oh, hi girls," he offered a slight wave towards Mikayla and Lydia. "Have you seen a horse?"

  Mikayla pointed at the trail Geum had left, while Lydia puffed up. "What's that idiot doing? The Moon Rabbit was just here, but he's probably sent it running to the other end of the Hunting Grounds after that!"

  "I'm sorry to say, but that's kind of the idea. His 'genius plan' is to run around and sabotage the other teams while Keldryn and Kaizen hunt for the rabbit. I tried to talk him out of it. My most sincere apologies," Sekki rolled his eyes, then took off running again.

  "Yeesh. And I thought Nya and Irin made our team dysfunctional," Mikayla winced. "Still, mounted cavalry Goliaths. That shouldn't surprise me as much as it does,"

  Lydia just fumed. She took a moment to clear her head, then nodded. "I'll get back in the air, resummon Ivory. Try to find the Rabbit again,"

  "But then what? It wasn't scared of you. It trapped you. It'll just do the same again. I think we need a new plan,"

  Lydia bit her lip. "You aren't wrong," She let out a hiss, frustrated. "I'm sorry. I didn't realise the Moon Rabbit was an ambush predator. Rabbit Kaijus are usually more aggressive,"

  "Yeah, so, that's something you should have mentioned before. We were literally told that its main hunting strategy is setting gravity traps," Mikayla folded her arms.

  "I thought I'd be out of range and Ivory could scare it out of hiding . . I'm sorry," she muttered another apology.

  "Oh well, no big deal. This is why we're going to school, no one gets it right her first time," Mikayla patted her shoulder. "We do need to change our strategy, though. I think I've got an idea, but we're going to need Nya and Irin back with us and helping. Think you can find them? We'll meet at the edge of the forest,"

  "Oh! Of course! I'm on it!" Marauder formed up again, and Lydia nodded vigorously as she lifted back into the air.

  Once she was gone, Nocturnus spoke up. "Do you think it's strange for her, to control her Armour's wings while keeping her own tucked away?"

  Mikayla considered that, then glanced at her own arm. "Huh. That's probably a trick worth learning,"

  <=====}—o

  Unsurprisingly, when Mikayla caught up to Lydia, Nya and Irin, the two Moonlight Roses were bickering.

  Seeing them side by side, the similarities and differences were more apparent than ever. Nya's purple aura seemed to clash violently with the green of Moonlight Rose, while the turquoise of Irin's magic was almost subsumed by it. Nya's kusarigama hung from her hands, while Irin was gripping a hardlight katana in her mech's claws.

  "Alright, we're all here," Nya sounded relieved. "So what did you wish to say, Mikayla?"

  "Don't just stop talking to me, you starring -"

  "Irin, this is not productive," Mikayla intervened. "I get that you and Nya have issues, but this -"

  "Who's Nya?" Irin asked.

  "Mikayla has gifted me an epithet uniquely mine. I'm not enthused by her corrupting my honoured name, but it is a sign of camaraderie and friendship in her culture so it would be remiss of me to reject it,"

  "Nya . ." Irin chuckled darkly. "I think it suits you,"

  She cast Irin a look. "I don't think I appreciate it as much when you say it . ."

  "Oh-kay," Mikayla intervened.

  "So, Mikayla," Nya rounded on her. "Lydia said you had a plan?"