Portia was really focused on what she was doing, and even if I was on high alert as I was, it was going to be pointless to try to warn her, well, simply because she had made up her mind, and I also knew that if I dared to try and catch up to her in order to stop her, she was going to pull the birthday card on me and also pull up the I am older than you card, making her feel like since she had made that very clear it was her checkmate.
I was still in my position and still in one place. I hadn't even moved, not even lifted a finger. Something kept bothering me, and that feeling kept getting worse and more uncomfortable, like my insides were slowly turning themselves into a knot, and I got that feeling every single time Portia got closer to our prey, because though she thought she knew better she still made a whole lot of mistakes, the kind of mistakes that not only would have alerted the bunny and made it run away, but the ones that made even the birds on the trees fly away.
And she was ready to take that shot. Portia might have been a fire type magic user, and it was possible that since she was one of those special type of children who had awakened her abilities just after the new year had just started, you'd think by now she should have gotten used to her own abilities, not to even think that her birthday was around August, and so in all those eight months she should know how to control her own powers.
Sadly, that wasn't the case. An amateur move that she had pulled was that she was so very careful that she had caused her own ball of fire not only stay in her hands longer than it needed, but now it was also getting out of hand, and from a normal ball of fire now slowly becoming a fiery hot, out of control lava ball.
Sure, it wasn't burning her and all that since it was her special attribute, but the ball was now dripping on the ground, and each time it did it would make this sizzling sound, like something was indeed burning.
Yes, in this part of the forest it was just the four of us, which included Portia and I, and our dads, but when we first came here it wasn't just the four of us, it was the twelve of us in total.
It's just that my dad and his friends had decided that in order to be able to catch more than just one beast, how about they scatter around to have a better chance of catching one if it just happens that one of them doesn't catch anything.
I honestly don't know where the others were, but thanks to Portia's incense burning I'm sure they all could hear the sound coming from her.
Portia really had no idea what she was doing, because I'm sure in her mind she had convinced herself that she already had the bunny to where she wanted it to be, but that wasn't the case, cause though I was left behind with her probably thinking I did that because I was scared, I could still see the bunny's ears wiggling, and I could tell that it was aware of her, but whatever had caught its eye had now made it frozen with fear.
"Here goes nothing!" Portia finally chose to take a shot after waiting for so long.
As much as I would have loved to see how she handled her business like she had claimed her family name did, I knew what was coming, and I knew that her ball of fiery lava wasn't going to make its mark.
How did I know that?
It wasn't really rocket science. After so long of trying to figure what had gotten me and the bunny on edge, I had finally managed to take a guess, and though it was a little risky, it was still worth it, cause it was an accurate guess.
I could hear the grass and all the things that were usually found on the ground of a forest, and the beast had now locked on to its prey. It was just a matter of time that it had decided to take initiative, and which it did.
After Portia had gathered the strength and power for her to shoot, her aim was on point, but the bunny was so lucky that it had managed to snap out of its frozen fear and moved out of the way in the nick of time, and during that timeframe it was about to be attacked by two things, Portia's lava ball and the predator.
And when I saw that predator jump out of nowhere, I didn't even need some special magnifying glass to see what it was, because I already knew what that was, and it wasn't your typical beast that was a high grade top-tier beast, a predator amongst predators.
It was a silver back scaled Wolf, one of the most dangerous and rare beasts ever, especially in these side of the forest.
Right after the bunny had moved out of the way, and when the Silver Back Scaled Wolf missed its prey, the moment it landed on a prey free spot, Portia's ball was already on its way to toast the prey, and unlucky for her it burnt the wrong beast, no, let me say that it tried.
Cause after a big explosion, Portia made a mistake of counting all her eggs before they even hatched, and she celebrated.
"Yes, I finally got it! I told you that I didn't need your help!" She was busy jumping up and down. She even turned around to gloat to me.
As much as that explosion was awesome, and it reminded me of my good old job days, I knew better, and if what I thought was how it was going to turn out exactly as I anticipated, real danger and trouble was coming, and we were not going to make it out alive.
"Portia! Get the hell out of there!" I warned her.
The way I shouted, I don't really blame her for not understanding what I was trying to do. All that she could do was stop jumping, and she looked at me like I had lost my mind.
But here's the thing. After that whole explosion, Portia's attack didn't really do any damage at all. Instead of even leaving a mark, the Wolf just dusted off the attack and got even angrier than before. Yeah, talk about a fire resistant beast.
It just let out one hell of a roar, an angry one at that.
The Wolf didn't even need a second to get its head back in the game. I believe right after it shook the attack from its eyes, cause that's where the ball made contact, the moment its vision got cleared and saw who was the person who did that, it just ran for her, and the worst part, Portia wasn't even that far from it, maybe she was three feet away from it.
That thing was really fast, even faster than me, and if I didn't allow my own body to have a mind of its own and run for her, we would be talking another story, and I've seen children in far worse conditions than one should see no matter the age.
The Wolf was just a jump away from making Portia its lunch, and I was smart enough to think not just using my feet but also my head. I knew that if I kept running I wasn't going to make it in time to save her, so I had done what I hoped most people in my position would have done. Instead of just keep running, I jumped.
And as the Wolf was just a claw away from clenching on her, I had managed to move her out of the way, that the beast actually rolled over.
We were so unfortunate that when we got up we didn't even have the time to ask each other that we were okay, you know, have that romantic scene, because the Wolf got back to its four legs within a second, and the way it was so mad it literally made me call out my mother.
"Mommy!" I said in a squirmy voice.
The Wolf was beyond mad. It was so angry that its eyes literally glowed in red and its sharp teeth grew even longer, not to even talk about the saliva that was dripping from its mouth. Now it wasn't just angry, now it was both angry and hungry.
Poor Portia was so frightened, she didn't have that chance to experience the fear that she had.
She just froze, and since she was the first one who saw the Wolf get back up, she really didn't do much but just stare at it.
"Portia... Portia... Portia!" I tried to call her, but she was not just hearing me. "Portia, come on, we've got to go!" I also kept shaking her.
Not that any of that was working. She was really gone, and there was no way that I could do anything else to get her attention.
Then, as much as I was trying so hard not to turn my head and look what was waiting for me behind, I really didn't need to do so, cause I could see it in her eyes, and before I could even see how bad things have gotten, Portia's fear was all the proof I needed.
The undeniable truth is that the reason I didn't want to look back wasn't because I was feeling heroic and having that moment where I would do things in slow motion and then a very fitted soundtrack would play.
No, that wasn't the case. The truth is I was also scared, and yes, I know I was a big shot assassin who would run in the middle of gunshots just to make sure I kill that person, but this was new to me, a beast that was so larger than me, and another thing, I was still a child, so I was allowed to have that fear.
And I was doing so well, but then when I heard it roar, I felt like the whole forest was experiencing a tremor, so I had no choice but to look back.
And that's when I saw it. The Wolf just charged directly at us, and even its run, it was stomping like a stampede was coming for us.