64 Phase 54: Frenzied Bear

It was a great gray bear with spikes for fur (or at least, it did now). The thing stood at thirty feet and seemed to be getting bigger by the moment.

"That's Medin's Dire Bear!" Zoe gasped. "What happened?!"

"Medin?" Satrox blinked. "You mean this bear wasn't Frenzied before?"

"Medin was helping with the clean-up tonight!" Zoe stared. "How did he let this happen?!"

Satrox made a call. "Abby, we've got a new Frenzied. One of our volunteers lost a Dire Bear. Of course we're taking it on! What do you think we're here for?"

Zoe touched her badge. "Kason!"

Before her appeared a white unicorn with a golden mane. {Cripes, that thing's bigger than Satrox's Noble by half!}

Zoe mounted her unicorn and it leapt into the air, running on nothing as if it were solid ground. {That horse doesn't even need wings…}

"Jasper! Ruby! Frost! Dynast! Long-range bombardment! Try not to move too much!" Satrox told his Crimson Condors, Snow Owl and the Albatross. "Noble, give me a high orbit. I need to take a good look. Wraith, charge up a Grave Beam."

"Shiro." Colin turned to his own Comrades. "Stay safe!"

"Yip." Shiro nodded. "Yiyip!"

Kirin joined Satrox's birds as they took a position high overhead. All of Colin's Comrades and Satrox's birds opened fire on the Frenzied Dire Bear.

Zoe and Satrox, meanwhile, were going over the Bear's head, high enough to be out of reach of its claws. Colin, sitting behind Satrox on the Pegasus named Noble, looked down and felt a bit dizzy, wondering what Satrox wanted to see about all this.

"Not good." Satrox grunted. "Zoe?"

"It's too crowded." She said, as if confirming something. "And it's still moving east. At this rate…"

"We'll have to wait until it's out of the town." Satrox sounded annoyed. "Either way, this place is going to suffer for someone's carelessness."

The Dire Bear, Colin realized, was still getting bigger. "Um… Satrox… that bear's growing."

"It just became Frenzied. Of course it's growing. It's going to keep getting bigger at a crazy rate for about half an hour before it goes back to normal growth rates."

{Half an hour?! How big is this thing going to get?!}

Then the fur started flying. Satrox guided his Pegasus into a swift dive as spike-like fur as big as swords went shooting past them. He and Zoe went even higher.

Satrox made another call. "Dynast! Get the birds to a safe range! I don't care if it's too far to attack, just stay away from that fur!"

Colin tapped his watch too. "Shiro! Get back until the fur can't reach you!"

The Dire Bear roared again, and this time, sonic waves erupted from its mouth. Zoe and Satrox split up to avoid the waves.

"This is bad." Satrox grunted. "Hey, Colin. You wanna know how bad it would be if Sonia goes Frenzied?"

Colin stared at Satrox, not saying anything.

Satrox told him anyway.

"It's going to look like this."

***

Things went progressively downhill from there.

First, the pick-up crews fled. Then, the other volunteers and J-Knights backed away. Henry, Foxtrot and Rita were almost killed when the Dire Bear started shooting spiked fur around in every direction. Satrox gave them a sharp scolding for not running earlier when they were ordered to.

The Dire Bear kept growing. It reached fifty feet by the time Henry, Foxtrot and Rita started running for their lives. It reached sixty by the time fresh J-Knights arrived and started long-range bombardments.

Sandy and a trio of Purple Badge knights arrived in time to see that Frenzied bear demolish a good part of the town walls by simply stepping on it. There was a sonic aura around the bear when they saw it, and firein its eyes. The fur flying around were at three feet and looked more like metal.

"Ninety feet tall and growing." Satrox told Abby over the comms. "It's a 9-Stage, Abby, what did you EXPECT?"

"Can you hold it?" Abby asked.

"Actually, no. I'm thinking now would be a good time to evacuate Desert Outpost."

"Evacuate?! Satrox if you don't stop that thing, we might lose all the towns we're fighting for!"

"Yeah. I know. Is Kishin still around? He'll want to be here for this."

"Kishin?! I'm sending you everyone we can get hold of!"

"Don't!" Satrox barked sharply. "If we keep throwing everyone at that thing, we'll only cause more deaths and risk more Frenzieds! We need the very best in small numbers! Abby, we need the Seven Champions!"

"Well, the Twins are busy with that Amber Mammoth, and the White Knight is dealing with the Dune Scorpion. Cephas is at Frichi trying to handle a Frenzied Woodstreak Weasel and a Royal Beaver at the same time!"

Colin didn't need to guess who Abby meant by the Woodstreak Weasel and the Royal Beaver. {Velvet and Streak, both gone Frenzied… both were Katrin's.}

"Colin, get off!" Satrox said, landing Noble on the ground a safe distance behind the Dire Bear as it rampaged down the road towards Forest Village. "I need Noble to be as fast as possible."

Colin got off. "What do I do?"

"Just… keep your Comrades safe, whatever happens! Go back to Crabby Island if things get too dangerous!"

{You want me to run away and leave all this?!}

Colin sat there on the road beside the fallen Mantis that Henry took down earlier, and scratched his head. "Well… logically, I {should} back off. Letting my Comrades get killed too often is an even bigger danger than this Dire Bear. But… to just go away and leave everything… well…"

A large shadow swooped overhead. Shinji, for certain. Rain was sending a gigantic ball of lightning into the Dire Bear's back.

And the Dire Bear turned.

{Oh scrap.}

The great Frenzied thing no longer marched down the road towards Forest Village.

Instead it headed towards the Storm Swan hovering over the wreckage of Riverside Town.

Right above Colin.

***

Abby was saying, "Lord Geoffrey's gone to the conference, but Kishin's on his way! He won't be able to reach you for another ten minutes at least! Until he arrives, you and Zoe have to hold!"

"Zoe! We have to hold it!" Satrox told her.

Zoe nodded. It was time. "Pando!"

With a crackle of the very ground, Zoe's biggest Comrade appeared, a creature so large that they couldn't even summon it in town. Pando resembled nothing less than a grove of trees, but it was really just one Comrade. All those 'trees' really sprouted from the same roots.

{This is it. We'll stop it with this.}

Then something blue crackled over the back of the Frenzied bear. The gigantic thing stopped short of Pando's reach.

{Eh? Why is it stopping? Does it somehow understand that it was about to get entangled?}

Slowly, it turned back.

{It's turning…?} Satrox blinked. {Why is it… ah. That's why.}

Rain fired off another Lightning Sphere into the Dire Bear even as Satrox called his Comrades in for another attack run.

{Well, that works too. I was counting on Pando, but if Rain can use her powers to provoke it, that's just as well.}

The Dire Bear stomped back towards the town, fur flying, sonic waves roared from the mouth, fireballs shooting out from the eyes, and the sonic aura growing stronger and stronger. Those claws took a swipe at Rain, even though she was too far off to hit…

{Oh scrap! RAIN!} Satrox's eyes widened as the claws extended a hundred feet and reached out for the Storm Swan.

Rain swooped upwards, blasting the claw with a third Lightning Sphere, but didn't quite manage to stop it or avoid it entirely. The uppermost claw struck the Storm Swan in a glancing blow and sent her reeling through the air.

"Pando! Root that bear!" Zoe barked. "Hurry up!"

Pando shuffled forward, all thirty 'trees' of her. Razor leaves started raining into the Bear from behind.

The bear, however, seemed much more intent on the Swan than the leaves tickling its back. That sonic aura proved to be effective in weakening the leaves attacks, but the Lightning Spheres had definitely hurt it.

Rain threw a fourth Lightning Sphere into the Dire Bear's face, then backed off, staying out of reach. She was almost above the middle of the town now.

{What's Shinji doing?! I know we have to hold it here, but is it really necessary to sacrifice one town to save the rest?} Then Satrox's eye fell on a small figure below that he really, really should have remembered sooner.

{Oh, scrap. Colin!}

***

Colin huddled behind half a wall for cover as fur-spikes almost four feet long rained down around him.

{I used to like bears. Rall was a sweet bear. He loved honey and liked to guard our base. Gera wasn't bad too. Sure she growled a lot, and I didn't have much time with her, but she seemed like a decent bear.}

But now…

The rain of fur-spikes was getting heavier. Colin gritted his teeth. {I'm right in its path. He'll walk over me and even if he doesn't squash me underfoot, his aura'll kill me for sure. I have to run.}

{And the longer I wait, the harder it will be. I have to move, NOW!}

Colin dashed out despite the rain of spikes and prayed for a miracle. Somehow, he made it to the next half-wrecked factory lot without getting hit by a spike.

{I recognize this place. This was where I bought my bike!}

But all the bikes here were ruined. The whole factory was smashed. It provided some decent cover, but Colin knew he had to move on.

{I recognize the next place too. Frog Smelter. It always did want more Coco Iron.}

Colin made a dash for it.

Pain lanced through his leg just before he reached shelter. The sudden extra weight made him stumble forward, and land face-first in a half-filled bucket.

{OW! Double OW!}

Colin wiped his face clean, shoved that bucket aside, and inspected his leg. He winced.

{Four feet long metal spike. Talk about hard fur.}

His watch beeped. Someone was calling.

"Colin!" Satrox sounded half in a panic. "Are you all right?"

"I just got speared through the leg. I can't run. I'm stuck." Colin told him. "And how are you doing?"

"You can't run?!"

"It's like a spear, Troxy." Colin said, feeling seriously annoyed. "It's driven into the ground, right through my leg. I can't move. Oh, and by the way…"

Colin took a deep breath and screamed his lungs out, letting Satrox know that he did, actually, feel the pain.

And then another familiar voice sounded… not in his ear, but in his head. [Colin?!]

[Lynn.] Colin groaned. [It hurts… it really hurts…]

[What happened?!]

Colin told her. In a flash of a moment, in the form of a thought, he sent her his memories.

[I… see.] Lynn felt troubled.

[Lynn… stay away… if your super-bird goes Frenzied, we're all dead.]

Lynn seemed to find that amusing. [Shouldn't you be worried about yourself more than for me? You've just been nailed by a bear's fur.]

[It's not funny!]

Lynn's mental voice turned gentle. [Don't worry, Colin. I'm here.]

And then her voice sounded in his ear as well as in his head. Not as a whisper, or as one speaking nearby, but as a thunder spoken easily and heard all the way on the other side of town.

"Reginald, isn't it? You're looking rather bad for a Dire Bear." Lynn's voice said, soothing in tone but thundering in volume.

Reginald, the Frenzied Dire Bear, roared in defiance.

"You know who I am." Lynn said then.

There was a silence. Then slowly, ever so slowly, Reginald's head lowered. The fur stopped flying. The fireballs fizzled out.

"I also know who you are and what you are. I know why you are hurt, and angry. So I'm going to give you a chance."

Reginald let out a pained roar.

"What's done is done, old boy. At this point, you have only two options. Either we can fight and you will eventually be sealed… or I can pardon you."

{Pardon…? What the…?!}

Reginald hesitated. He let out a confused roar.

"For you, I am willing to use an Edict." Lynn said, gently. "I remember you, Reginald. I know what you have done for us. I have not forgotten. If you are willing to come into my care, I will use an Edict for your sake."

{What's an Edict? I thought it was almost impossible to Tame a Frenzied. That's why they need to be sealed. But Lynn's saying she has another way?!}

Reginald let out a questioning roar.

"You know I can do it."

Reginald stopped and sat down right there, on top of what was left of the town's walls. The aura faded slowly. He let out a mournful bawl.

{What the…?}

"Then so be it." Lynn said, softly. Then, her voice rose up, both in volume and authority.

"Winds of Life, hear my voice. Trees of the Forests, this is my decree! I send forth an Edict! By my authority, Reginald Frenzied the Dire Bear is Pardoned!

"Let Frenzy be lifted! Let fury subside! Let sorrow fade! Let the past be released! Reginald Lynns is mine! I claim him as my own!"

Colin had to stare as Reginald's form slowly shrunk. He seemed to simply exhale softly, and close his eyes. He lowered his head, and lay down as if to rest. In the five seconds he took to do so, his size simply melted away.

Before he knew it, Colin was looking at a bear of about twenty-five feet.

{How? How can she do something like this? Who IS Lynn?!}

Lynn sealed the Edict. "Let the world bear testimony! Thus I make my fifth Edict!

"This I decree in the name of Lynn, the Forest Princess!"

***

The first time he spoke with Lynn mind-to-mind, she had been in a plane above the road east from Riverside, the very road Satrox's Squad had taken to Riverside tonight. Lynn had asked Colin how he got her psi-phone's number, and had spoken to him only a short while at the time.

He met her again when he was in the Forest of Legends, afraid for his life as he was chased by three high leveled Shadow Hawks. She had dropped out of the sky on what Colin figured to be the father of all Shadow Hawks and his pursuers had literally bowed in homage.

At that time, he thought they were bowing to her Comrade. It wasn't until now that he realized that they had been bowing to {her}.

{Lynn is the Forest Princess?!}

Colin also realized one more thing. The name of the local airport was 'Lynn Airport'.

"Why didn't I realize it sooner?" Colin had to ask.

{Lynn…is really… the Forest Princess… }

Reginald Lynns the Pardoned Dire Bear poked his head over the wall and looked at Colin, stuck to the ground by one of his earlier fur-spikes.

"H-h-hello…" Colin gulped. "Don't eat me, okay? Lynn won't like it."

Lynn's laughter filled his ears. "Take it out, Reginald."

Reginald let out an agreeable growl and tugged his fur-spike out of Colin's leg.

"OW!"

"Relax, Colin. It's gone." Lynn assured him.

It {was} gone. The pain was gone too.

Colin looked up to see Lynn smiling down at him. The girl was fair, with light golden hair, bright blue eyes, and really rather skinny. She was a few years older than he, almost the age of Colin's elder sister, who was seventeen.

"Hello again." Lynn greeted him. "It's been a while."

"A few nights." Colin nodded. "A very long time."

Lynn laughed softly. Colin saw her huge bird, the great Shadow Hawk, behind her. Three formations of regular Shadow Hawks flew overhead, while an entire pack of Sonic Wolves waited at her back.

"Come with me, Colin." She told him, taking his hand.

"Huh? Where?" Colin blinked.

Lynn gave him a patient look. "Where else? To the Forest of Legends.

"We're going Home."