After much discussion, Shade and Sparky went back to Base Camp, Hopper and Glaucous explored the forest looking for anything useful, and Ivory and Aileen stayed back at the clearing. All Aileen needed for a fight was water, and Ivory was always armed, with forearm-length daggers up both her sleeves and longer knives clipped to her boots.

The next hour passed in a blur. Hopper and Glaucous came back early, arms full of vines and twigs. Hopper was full of surprises: she expertly bent and wove the twigs into a shockingly solid cage.

“Who knows, we might have to take Cerise prisoner,” Hopper said. She seemed delighted by the idea. Ivory, on the other hand, looked positively sick at the thought.

Glaucous and Hopper worked together to make a big net trap of the vines. They explained that if you stepped on the carefully laid plants, they would spring up around you and trap you in a net. We tested it and it worked pretty well. 

Shade and Sparky came back a little after Hopper and Glaucous. Sparky was carrying Caffeinated Fish, and Shade had her arms carefully laden with knives, tiny daggers, and an elaborate, twisty sword inlaid with kite-shaped kunzite. The sight of the pale purple stones made Aileen wonder if the sword used to belong to Twilight.

Shade offered everyone all the knives and daggers, but Sparky, Glaucous, and Aileen refused, preferring to use their Elemental powers. Hopper took a few tiny daggers, promptly wrapped flowers around their hilts, and strapped them to her hip, and Ivory took two long knives, practically swords, and took a vine and wrapped it around her chest, slipping the knives into place against her back in a criss-cross formation.

Shade put knives up her sleeves and clipped daggers to her boots. Aileen wondered if that was where Ivory had learned her arming technique.

A sharp and sudden wind lifted our hair. Shade clapped a hand to her forehead to keep her bangs in place.

Three figures rose out of the distance. They were levitating somehow, and I wondered if that had anything to do with the wind.

They came closer, and we readied our weapons. It seemed the fight had begun.