ALL ROSES HAVE THORNS

{Do you want me to save your luna?} Gareth mindlinked me.

This surprised me, {What do you mean, Gareth?}

{I can remove him from the battlefield.} Gareth told me, {It would cost him the duel, but perhaps save his life.}

My first thought was that Bell would definitely kill me if I did that.

My second was that if I didn't, I might lose Bell forever here.

I bit my lip and worried.

"Are you thinking of rescuing the Tyger King, blue alpha?" Heller asked me lightly.

The fact that Gareth and I both froze in place didn't escape Heller.

Heller laughed, "Garry, you too? But you'll die if you go out there! You and Anna both!"

Wait, what?

But Gareth only nodded like he had known all along.

"Ah, I forget, your allegiance is with the Blue Alpha now." Heller said it like that explained everything, "But you should know, our allegiance is also with our Tyger King. Don't worry. Even though he may suffer, he will not die. I'm sure Haku is prepared to keep both his son and his king alive."

Haku cleared his throat, "I have requested Hajime's and Shiro's assistance. Since it's the Tyger King, they will probably come when summoned."

"That's going to be a lot of poison to expel." Heller beamed.

Haku sighed.

Meanwhile, out on the field, Bell didn't seem to realize how much trouble he was going to be causing the other healers in his Tyger circle, or even that he was supposed to be losing, "Is that all you've got?"

"I would suggest you surrender, Your Majesty." Hayao warned from his treetop vantage point, "Even though you have survived my first two casts, my next cast is far deadlier, and the damage, at times, even irreversible."

"Did you not know?" Bell laughed hollowly, "I've already lost my foreleg. Do you think the threat of permanent damage would deter me?"

Well yes, haven't you ever heard of "once bitten, twice shy"? But no, apparently Bell was more of the "once bitten, throw all caution into the wind" type.

"Your recklessness will cost you." Hayao informed him.

Bell only scoffed, "Really? You're wasting my time. Just shut up and cast."

"He's crazy." Heller said with a tinge of admiration.

Haku shook his head, "Young wolves are so impatient."

Yes, but my mate was also a genius tactician and an overall complex guy - the kind who would never think to make a direct hit. I had seen Bell fight before, and suddenly I felt quite sure he was up to something.

{Your orders, Alpha?} Gareth prompted. I guess, he didn't trust the other Tygers all that much.

{It'll be okay.} I told him, {Bell will win.}

I just couldn't see how that was possible right now. Gareth nodded a bow and stepped back. He was just going to take his Alpha's word for it.

Hayao's next spell grew poisonous thorny vines that could be manipulated like alien arms. He could use it to grab at Bell, and the scratches from the thorns would not heal quickly. It wasn't wolfbane, but it was close. Get cut up enough and it'll lead to paralysis and eventual death once the poison reached the vital organs.

"It hurts like hell too." Heller quipped. I didn't ask him how he knew.

"When did he learn that?" Haku marveled at his son's prowess.

"You didn't teach it to him?" Heller asked and concluded all on his own, "He must have learned watching you."

"Is this your move?" I asked Haku, "What's it called?"

"All Roses Have Thorns." Haku answered sagely.

Okay. Forget I asked.

"Finally, something I can really work with." Bell smirked when the vines swung towards him.

Instead of turning tail to run away, Bell ran towards the vine, drawing his sword, he loped it off, slicing it through like butter. Hayao sent more vines at him.

One vine was easy, but multiple vines of various thickness repeatedly and Bell was soon hacking away furiously. If this was his plan, it would probably be the worst plan I had ever seen him come up with.

Heller laughed at his plight, "He's not going to make it out alive."

Haku sighed again, "The vines will only multiply."

And they were multiplying at an alarming rate. With every cut, the vine would sprout two new ones. In just moments, Bell was slashing at a wall of vines.

"Stop." Bell said.

And the vines stopped.

"Do you surrender?" Hayao asked from up in the tree.

Bell smirked, "No, I just wanted to give you fair warning. It's my turn now."

"What?" Hayao thought he must have heard wrong.

A large dark shadow moved from within the dense fog, Bell smirked again and stepped back, disappearing into the smog that had settled over the dead land. There was a cracking sound, and the ground split right through, cutting the field in half and hitting Hayao's tree. Hayao had to grab onto the branches to keep from falling out.

And then the dark shadow emerged as the largest and thorniest...

"What the hell is that?" Heller asked.

My hair flared, and Boo was suddenly on high alert.

"Whatever it is, it's dangerous." Gareth decided. He gestured for Anna to stand closer to me while he stepped up in front of us.

"I can't see." I complained.

"But Alpha..." Gareth tried to explain.

"Me, me!" Heller volunteered, "You can stand in front of me Garry."

Gareth threw him a dirty look.

Haku was too preoccupied at what was happening on the battlefield to think about his physical safety. He leaned out to see better, "He... I... how..."

Heller pulled him back so they were now all behind Gareth and his shield.

"He fused them together." Haku explained, sounding rather shell-shocked, "This ability to generate and fuse tissues together..."

Oh yeah. I knew Bell could do that. Like how he forced close Beta Lucas' gun wound the other time. I had long noticed that Bell's style of healing had been different from Ki's (I didn't have all that many healers to compare it to), but Bell's healing had always been distinctly targeted - it wasn't just him. The Lorents did grow out an entire arm in a few hours, so at the very least, Bell's dad, Alpha James could do it too.

Apparently, such abilities were from a bloodline extinct in the Colored Mountains. And the fact that Bell could do it while fighting vines and casting full heals to counter the poisons made Bell some kind of genius, at least according to Haku.

Heller had a different perspective.

"He managed to learn how to control the vines by watching Hayao's cast. Cutting off the vines and changing positions repeatedly so that Hayao would have to cast repeatedly." Heller pointed out, "How long did it take for Hayao to learn this skill?"

According to Heller, Bell was master in tactical war. Hayao was a genius young healer who had mastered skills beyond his years, but Bell proved to be the one more capable on the actual battlefield. The fight was just a distraction. The power-intensive spells were just a facade. And the smog was just a curtain behind which Bell created his counter attack.

It was a monster - a tree-like vine with large spikes, and of course, it was poisonous. By channeling a huge amount of magic into it, Bell pretty much forced the spiky tree to grow roots that broke up the ground all the way to Hayao's side of the field.

And then the roots morphed into a vine that rapidly snaked up Hayao's tree, forcing him to take refuge in the next one.

Now it was Hayao's vines against Bell's monster hybrid. Bell's woody vines easily crushed Hayao's. It was ruthless, its large roots burrowing underground, cracking up the earth, and then attacking whichever tree Hayao was in.

"If he gets him, your son will be crushed." Heller wasn't smiling anymore.

As if to prove Heller right, the monster tree-vine snaked up around a third tree and suddenly expanded in width, it's thorns like spears puffing out, strangling the tree and snapping it in half.

Hayao had jumped off the tree, and run down the monster tree-vine, narrowly being stabbed when Bell decided to force more mega-sized thorns out of the branch Hayao was running down. Hayao had to make a jump for it. It was too high. There were poisonous thorns below him. Hayao was really put on the spot.

But he had no choice. Hayao jumped, just in the nick of time. Any later and he would have been kababed by one of the thorns stabbing at him.

He managed to use his own vines to catch him, his robes wrapping tightly around him to protect from his own thorns.

Hayao was a healer, not a fighting-type wolf. Even though he had a long sword and knew how to use it, how did one fight off a tree with a sword? There was no lesson that would teach Colored Mountain princes to shift into their wolf form and mow it down. Actually, this was probably very much a Night Leaf Babarian wolf style of fighting - running in head first. It might kill us, but it would also destroy whatever in front of us into smithereens. We were very headstrong that way. Hahaha.

To make matters worse, Bell's monster tree-vine didn't grow naturally like Hayao's flowers and trees. Bell pretty much just forced magic into generating growth in whichever limb he wanted the plant to expand. No thought to natural asthetics whatsoever.

And it expanded very quickly too, growing at a much faster rate than Hayao's vines.

It reminded Haku of a rare healing type of wolves who had power that was both fearsome as it was wonderous. But instead of using their powers to heal and restore, these wolves sold their services to the highest bidder without a qualm. They made for themselves a dark reputation.

Eventually, they were banished from the mountains. Those who didn't leave were hunted down. Now they only exist in the pages of books and the stories of the elders.

Before Haku could finish reminiscing the lost bloodline of dark healers (although they were not the darkest), all of Hayao's trees were crushed, the beautiful field of flowers was now broken up by large twisted buttress roots, and the smog had covered the entire battlefield.

This wasn't a Good Vs Evil battle, but if I were, it would really look like evil had won this round.

"Even if you can heal yourself from my poison, it will drain you." Bell smirked, "Surrender, Hayao. It's your loss."

It didn't help that my mate liked to talk like a bad guy.

"It's my loss." Hayao admitted, "I underestimated my opponent, I was too narrow-minded about what was possible, and I realize now that I still have far to go. Thank you for your guidance, your majesty."

Or that Hayao spoke lines like the classic Lycan hero.

"Now swear your allegiance or die." Bell ordered.

"No, don't..." I flared.

And then I woke up.

What a stoopid way to start a new day!