Space

"Space," Ethan spoke softly, "What can it do?"

"I don't know," I scanned our surroundings with infrared, "I don't understand it well enough to even attempt to use it. You two should get some rest."

"What will happen if we get attacked?" Ethan frowned at me.

"Relax," I looked around again, "I'll wake you if anything comes near us."

"What if you fall asleep?" Savannah questioned.

"I got plenty of sleep earlier," I unfurled my wings over, and around them, "I'll last."

Ethan relaxed under my left wing. While Savannah tried to settle under my right one. She was having a much more difficult time settling in to sleep. She was still having trouble trusting me completely. She probably wouldn't sleep as well as Ethan.

These bouts of distrust was probably why her bond was leveling up so slow. I kept waiting for something to happen. I kept my wings completely still, but my head was on a swivel as I waited for something to happen. My murderous intent was let out on a low level. A warning for all the nearby creatures that I would attack anything, and everything that got within range.

Luckily nothing got close for a few hours. Daylight was still a few hours away, but I figured four hours of sleep was plenty for now. I tapped Savannah on the shoulder with the tip of my tail, and nudged Ethan with my nose. Savannah woke up startled. Ethan rolled over slowly as he worked his way back to awareness.

I stood up. I didn't need to shelter them anymore. They'd be awake soon. I stretched slowly. Extending my wings slowly as I did.

A multitude of quiet satisfying pops helped my muscles relax. I snorted as I looked around again. I pulled in my murderous intent in, and waited for Ethan to finish waking up.

"We should get moving," I looked at Ethan as he slowly drug himself to his feet, "We won't be able to do much hunting once the sun rises. Everyone will be headed our direction for the whole meet up thing."

"Makes me wonder what they want to tell us," Savannah mused to herself mostly.

"Probably just something educational," I snorted.

Ethan chuckled at that. Savannah didn't find it as funny. We hunted down a few more beasts before the first rays of daylight came down. There weren't very many of them, and their tiers dropped as soon as first rays of daylight crossed the land. All the stronger creatures seemed to disappear with the daylight.

There were a large number of beasts down in the trench. I looked down into the trench, and my spines trembled as a chill ran through me. There was a lot of danger down there. Excitement welled up from within me. I wanted to know what was down there, and if I could kill them.

Kind of a dark thought, but I am a predator after all. Wanting to know if I could kill something was part of being a predator. My wings pulled in tight. I'd have to take my human form soon. I didn't want to.

I liked being myself. Cooping myself up in a human body just felt wrong.

"I'm going to go switch," I spoke up around eight when we started to see teams headed the same direction we were, "We won't be able to move freely until I switch forms. There will be way too many people up ahead for us to avoid them anymore."

Savannah, and Ethan stayed put while I moved away, and switched forms quickly. Pulling on the same clothes I wore yesterday before heading back to them. I rubbed the back of my neck tensely. I felt exposed out here without my scales to protect me. It was a good thing there were a lot of teams out here.

There were almost no beasts out here as a result so we crossed to the edge of the forest, and were on the road in less than an hour. There were a lot of teams on the road by now. We were maybe an hours walk away from the meeting point now. Teams were checked in, and scanned as they arrived there one by one. Our rankings were updated as each team was scanned.

We were sitting pretty at third in the rankings. We got looks from every single team on the field. We were the smallest team out there. Our three members stood out with our high scores. Plus we had the highest tier kill on the board.

That tier twelve mind seeder. The star next to our team number marked us as the team with the highest ranked kill. The next highest tier beast I saw on the board was a tier seven. It must be disappointing for them since they were the current top scoring team. It was difficult to keep track of the top scoring teams since their names were left off this ranking list specifically to keep high scoring teams from getting targeted.

There was basically only one way for the high rankers to get identified, and that was for people to watch the board as it was updated. If a team scanned their point their corresponding team number would go up or down. So literally everyone was watching the temporary ranking board while they were waiting for the rest of the teams to show up. Personally, I didn't care about the rankings. I thought it was a complete waste of time.

Telling everybody who was better, and who wasn't worth mention in such a showy way while trying to make it seem secretive. I scratched the back of my head as we were approached by another team. The other groups of kids moved out of their way so they were probably the top team. It was a six man team. Led by a young woman.

She had black hair, and was pretty short. Her face looked almost Asian, but there was definitely something else in her. She had the polished look of someone who'd been born into money. Her natural looking clear skin made her pleasing to look at, but she wasn't anything special.

"So," she smirked at us, "You're the three man team everyone has been talking about."