The forest did not welcome togetherness. It tolerated movement, it drowned sound. But when more than two sets of steps travelled in rhythm, something in the air changed.
Pluto felt it before he saw them. The rhythm drew attention stronger than heat did.
The forest had entered a cycle of noise that they had learnt to adapt to. The creaks of bark adjusting to temperature change, cool winds stirring up waves in the mist, leaves falling from trees and their breaths in-between.
Now that pattern was broken.
It stuttered as the disturbances trudged through swamp water. Three, maybe more.
Mira noticed his posture change. "What?" She asked in a whisper.
"Someone..."
They were moving with ease that didn't match the intensity of the atmosphere.
The sounds of their feet weren't like the ones that tried to match stealth. That was the first strange thing.
The second was the movement itself. They weren't scattered like frightened survivors, they had a formation, albeit a shaky one.
Pluto stopped walking completely. Mira mirrored him, her eyes sweeping from side to side.
"Many of them". Pluto nodded in response.
They didn't move like predators. Predators burst through, they tested.
They circled them and stalked through the mist.
A branch snapped clearly ahead.
Then the mist parted just enough to reveal. Three figures.
Two men and a woman.
All averaged about thirty in age. All alert.
They held weapons in their hands. Crudely fashioned, but threatening nonetheless.
One held a pickaxe – made from loosely packed stones, wrapped in strong vines. Another had a long rod. Made from something that oddly resembled iron. The woman carried a knife made from the same material.
Mira's breath dragged. She took a step back, falling slightly behind Pluto
"They aren't running from anything." She said.
"Seems not."
The man with the axe took a step forward. His eyes were sharp but weariness had dulled them.
"You two alone?"
His tone was flat, possessing almost no hostility or friendliness. He was assessing them.
" Possibly," Pluto replied calmly, his voice just as flat.
The second man shifted his grip on the rod. Pluto saw it. It was a hint that they had no intention of a diplomatic settlement.
The woman turned to Mira. " Did you hear it too?"
Mira thought. " Hear what?"
An evil smile touched the woman's lips. " That's what I thought."
Pluto's chest tightened.
"Thought what?" Mira asked, carefully of what words she used.
"That you don't know."
The first man glanced at the woman for a moment. He tilted back to Pluto. "How long since you arrived?"
" Does it matter?" His voice was already on edge.
The second man raised the rod off the ground. " It does."
Mira answered before Pluto could. " Three days."
Pluto did not correct her.
In truth he wasn't sure was the "correct" time was. Time itself here was playing a supporting role.
The man exchanged a glance with the others. They seemed surprised at the very least. Maybe they could smell the lie.
Their understanding was shared. And that was the third thing that was off. They weren't just survivors, they were informed ones.
" You've figured something out," Pluto said, more of a statement than a question.
The pickaxe man shrugged smugly.
"We've figured out enough." His gaze hardened.
" Enough to know that numbers drop for a reason."
Mira stepped back. Pluto did not.
The mist rumbled microscopically as it awaited bloodshed. The woman's eyes slid towards Pluto's arm. Subtle, but he saw it.
Pluto already understood. Words had become meaningless.
"There are too many of us." Pluto echoed his thoughts.
"You're wrong," Mira said quietly, replying to no one in particular.
The man with the pickaxe smiled, parting his entire lips maniacally. "Am I?"
The rod moved an instant after the words dropped. A quick step forward to bridge distance, and a predictable strike to the neck.
Fast.
Pluto stalled for a second too long as his muscles failed to start. But in his hopelessness, something ignited.
A triggered sensation that snapped the world into a realm of clarity that air seemed visible if one focused on it long enough.
Details sharpened beyond imagination– the precise angle the rod flew in, the shift in the attacker weight, the unprotected upper body.
Time did not slow. Pluto accelerated inside of it. Before thought caught up the action was completed.
He stepped forward to meet the attacker, redirecting the rod with its own momentum against his forearm. He twisted his hips, throwing an elbow towards the man's jaw with accuracy that did not belong to him.
Impact.
Clean and controlled.
He turned without delay, intercepting the head of the pickaxe the had been aimed for his spine in a downward arc. His movements were so perfect that they seemed rehearsed.
He let it fall just in front of him, trapping the wrist that followed.
He twisted and the weapon fell. No wasted motion.
The man was then swept from the legs with fluid economy. He couldn't resist in the slightest.
The woman lunged, using the man's falling figure as cover.
Her knife was held low, aimed at his legs to reduce his mobility.
Pluto stepped back nimbly, striking the top of her head as he shifted position, forcing her to dive head first into the muddy ground.
No lethal attacks, just overwhelming force.
Three successful attacks. They weren't defeated, just forced back.
Just as Pluto stood straight again, pain coursed through him.
The instantaneous rip in internal strength was disorienting. He staggered.
It was like something was being wrung dry.
His vision dimmed as the edges came closer. Sounds swam, becoming distant.
The heightened perception shattered. The time breaking speed left. The mastery vanished.
The trio instantly noticed. They recognised the weakness. They saw that it was momentarily.
"There!" The man with the rod wiped the blood off his mouth, eyes narrowing.
The others pushed themselves up too.
"Again!" Said the man with the pickaxe, who apparently was their leader.
Pluto moved, but his muscles felt heavy, as if they lagged in a slower network.
His breathing was ragged. He now understood that whatever had taken over him was too powerful.
And costly. Too costly to use causally like that.
Despite seeing his sorry state, they still advanced much more carefully.
They had seen what he was capable of. The flare in him that hid just beneath the surface.
The leader kicked his weapon up, catching it with ease.
"You don't know how to use it yet," he said.
Mira trembled, but she stepped forward covering Pluto.
The forest seemed to press closer.
Pluto's thoughts raced. He analysed every possible escape route in seconds. He considered tree density, terrain, proximity.
They were outmatched in all ramifications. So retreat was the only plausible solution.
Just as they entered the striking range, Pluto whispered. "We leave."
Mira's reaction time baffled him. It was almost as if she had been expecting those words. She didn't argue or respond for that matter, just moved.
Still, they needed to survive one more exchange before they could leave. Not because of spite, but because they couldn't retreat any faster.
The rod tore through the air.
Pluto sidestepped, but not as cleanly. Fatigue locked on his limbs.
A second later it was the pickaxe' turn to graze by him. It sliced emptiness too close to his shoulder.
Mira stretched her arm out, trying to form the oval again. But she didn't get as much as a shimmer.
"Run," Pluto said, already moving.
They broke into a scattered zigzag run through a cluster of low hanging branches.
The trio swore behind them. And footsteps followed just behind.
Fast ones.
***
Pluto's chest stung.
Every forced step bit him as he took it. The world burned his eyes from his view.
The forest in reality, wasn't burning, but constantly shifting. Roots rose without cause, branches danced between high and low.
The eel beneath his sleeve stirred faintly. It guided him. Left. Then right.
He didn't question it. He had learnt to blindly trust it.
They moved half running, passing between trees that resembled skeletons of dead beasts.
The space was narrow, sometimes claustrophobic.
Mira barely squeezed through.
Behind them, the rod clanged against bark. The trio's number caused them to slow a bit. Still, it wasn't much. Not as much as Pluto's decline.
Definition dropped again. Mist thickened.
Pluto steadied his breath. "They knew."
Mira dropped her pace. "Knew what?"
"That few survive. That death is the only option."
Her steps faltered briefly.
"So they're just killing with reckless abandon?"
"Yes."
The presence shook his senses again. Although fainter.
It observed. It confirmed his words.
Measuring the conflict.
They burst into a small clearing, less roots claiming territory. The ground depressed a little too.
Pluto felt it in a way words couldn't say. It was...a trap.
"Not here," he muttered.
He veered sharply before fully entering. Mira followed.
***
Just a moment after they left, the trio cut through from the opposite path.
Their leader walked through the clearing. He examined the floor. Footsteps that had just entered then left.
The rod wielder joined him. "They're learning the forest," he hissed.
"No," the woman said while she walked up to them. " Something is guiding them."
***
Pluto didn't hear what the woman had said. But the eel tightened along his vein, as if reacting.
They had stopped running now, but haste was still in their steps. The sound of pursuit had faded, but the memory pushed them forward.
Gradually, he slowed.
Then stopped.
Mira bumped into him. She dropped down, placing her hands on her knees. Her breathing was short.
She had beared the brunt of any attack, so Pluto couldn't understand why she looked just as beat up as he did.
"You..." Her voice was buffered slightly. "What was that?"
Pluto leaned against a tree, muscles still aching.
"I don't know."
"Was that what you had done before?"
"No...I hadn't done anything before."
"You fought like you've trained your whole life."
A ghost of a smile flashed across his face. " I did take some Judo lessons when I was younger."
"They're knowledgeable... and they are acting on it."
"Yes".
Silence pooled between.
The forest returned to its usual cycle of creak and crack. Mira hugged herself slightly, eyes determined. "If this place provides incentive for killing..."
"It does," Pluto interrupted. "I felt it."
She raised her brows. "How?"
"In the drain, in ways information cannot convey."
And beneath that, the sense of adjustment. A count.
Mira swallowed. " So the more someone kills, the stronger they get."
"Apparently."
She looked back at were the clearing had been. "They have already killed their own."
"Likely."
The mist shifted like it started paying attention.
"We're behind them in strength and knowledge."
The words caused rebellion to bloom in Pluto. "For now."
He pushed himself back upright, pulling through the feeling of having stone for skin.
It would fade eventually.
The trio had experience and clear coordination.
They just had intent. And the subtle guidance of a silent friend. Still, they hadn't understood their strengths yet. Not even in the slightest.
"That thing you did," she said softly. "It's involuntary right?"
"It is."
Her teeth clashed against itself. " Then we learn."
He turned to her. "Aren't you afraid?"
" I am," she admitted, a little too easily.
"But I don't plan on disappearing too."
The words held nothing but her will. No competence to back it up, but iron resolution. The forest seemed to nod in approval.
A shift was building, tightening the air. Pluto looked upwards, trying to pierce through the clouds of trees.
The presence did not press closer, but it let its existence be known.
It watched. The reduction, the adaption. The conflicts.
He felt himself. Felt his almost useless scale. He was nothing but a pawn. The eel laid quiet.
"Next time, we won't run first." Mira said.
Pluto nodded. "We will react."
***
Far behind them, the trio continued their search.
And elsewhere in the vast forest region. Someone else gave up the ghost. And the forest felt it as the counter dropped closer to half.