The Darwin Chronicles, Book One: The Mountain Ranges

Emmett landed on the bell tower and grabbed the mallet. He struck the bell clearly, four times. BONG. BONG. BONG. BONG. People started to come out from their houses, the members of Squadron Four running to the base of the bell tower.

"Emmett! What's going on?" Clark called.

"Blackfire's under attack. Squadron Two has already left to go and help. Joseph wants Squadron Four to head over there too!"

"Lead us there!" Lily said. They changed into a flock of birds and took off, Emmett turning into a falcon. As they soared closer to Blackfire, Emmett spotted one of Briarlight's soldiers circling over the demolished buildings, marking the spot where they were supposed to go.

Thanks, Emmett said to the eagle, Pete, in is mind.

Don't mention it, Pete responded. They landed quickly and ran towards the flames.

Blackfire was in complete chaos. Beasts trampled along the ground as the people hacked with their weapons and shot arrow and arrow. Huge, magnificent birds of prey circled overhead, nimbly diving in for attacks and ducking out of the way of the monsters' attacks.

"Joseph's ordered a regroup!" Violet shouted. Emmett could barely understand what she was saying over the awful din, but sprinted towards the trees. Squadron Two and Four were already there, thankfully none of them dead yet, along with a number of Blackfire soldiers, most of whom he'd never met before.

"Lucas has fallen!" Joseph announced. "I will command all of you until the battle is over. Is that clear?"

Everyone standing in the clearing mumbled and nodded their consent.

"Good. The monsters have taken out over half of Blackfire's warriors. All of those unfit to fight have been moved safely to Briarlight. All of you, fight as humans. It's better if we attack together in numbers. Only transform if you have to. Attack in groups of four or five. Let's go!" The soldiers headed back out into the cluster of demolished buildings, mindlessly forming into small groups of four or five like Joseph had said. Emmett found himself stuck with a cluster of young, battered Blackfire soldiers, including the limping scout girl from before.

"What are we dealing with?" Emmett asked them. One of the boys looked at him with exhausted eyes.

"Shadow serpents," The boy answered warily.

"Then we just need fire, supposedly," Emmett said.

"In case you haven't noticed, it's a bit hard for humans to summon fire," The boy responded, rolling his eyes. The teenagers charged a serpent, jumping onto it and hacking away. Emmett ducked out of the way of it's dark fangs, the evil aura pouring from the serpent. If a fang on a shadow serpent even touched you, you instantly died. Unfortunately, that was why no human had ever really lived to defeat a shadow serpent. They had a theory, though, that fire could kill them.

"It's not working!" One of the brown-haired girls yelled in frustration. Her sword simply went right through the monster's flesh as if it's body really was just a shadow. Emmett diverted his attention to another Blackfire boy in his group, who screamed as a fang sank into his arm. He dropped to his knees in absolute agony, writhing and screaming. His flesh started to dry up, turning black.

"Aaron!" The scout girl cried.

"Amy!" The boy wailed, grabbing onto the girl's hand. He screamed a final scream and squeezed her hand tightly enough to draw blood because of his fingernails, then disappeared, withering up, the last remains of him black and soft, floating away in the wind. The girl, Amy, looked at the shadow serpent, rage pooling deep within her grey eyes.

"Amy! No! Joseph said not to transform!" The brown-haired girl said, grabbing Amy's arm.

"They killed my brother!" Amy screamed. With a flash of hot, fiery golden light and a bang, she transformed into a huge, beautiful phoenix off and circled the battleground once before stopping and hovering. Everyone stared at her in amazement. Then, a wave of rage slammed into each of their minds so powerfully that they were each literally slammed back into the ground. Fireballs descended towards them at alarming paces, making each other the monsters erupt in searing blue, magical flames. The anger poured from the phoenix as it dove towards the final monster and attacked it with all of her might, racking its eyes.

"NO!" The brown-haired girl screamed. The shadow serpent's teeth clamped onto the phoenix's wing, but only did the usual damage, as if it were a simple garter snake biting onto a pidgeon's wing. Then the serpent exploded, and the rage slammed them all once again before fading. The phoenix landed and morphed back into a girl, who sank to the floor, panting in exhaustion, her arm bleeding.

"Amelia!" Joseph ran over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She panted.

"I told all of you not to transform! Why did you?"

"Sorry. I just thought I'd like to avenge my little brother," She hissed. She inhaled sharply and suddenly clutched her injured arm. The bite marks were tinged with green. Poison.

"We need to get back to Briarlight. Let's get out of here, fast." Joseph waved all of the survivors back towards the forest. The Blackfire warriors picked up their dead. Luckily no one from Briarlight had been killed. Each of them were too exhausted to morph and fly back home.

Along the trek home, Emmett found himself walking with the scout girl, Amelia(he'd figured Amy was short for Amelia), and the other boy from their attack group, who he learned was named Isaac. The more they walked, the more weak Amelia became. After about forty-five minutes of walking, she started periodically moaning in pain, clutching her arm harder and harder.

"Amy? You okay?" Isaac asked.

"Fine," Amy mumbled, gritting her teeth. Then she collapsed, Isaac catching her before she hit her head on some rocks.

"Oh, no. This is bad," He mumbled, checking on her arm. The poison had spread rapidly, past her shoulder.

"We're almost there. Just five more minutes," Emmett assured him. Isaac cast him a dark look.

"It had better be. From the looks of it, that's Louse Poison. Spreads rapidly, almost always fatal."

They arrived in Briarlight. The Blackfire soldiers poured into camp. Cries of relief, joy, and grief filled the air as the people who hadn't been able to battle found their loved ones alive-or, more likely, lifeless.

"Amy!" A woman who looked like Amy rushed over to Isaac, followed by a young, limping man who looked like the boy who'd died, Aaron. "What's happened?"

"Rosetta, the sooner you let me go, the more likely it'll be that she'll survive!" Isaac said urgently. Rosetta got out of the way, and Isaac sprinted over to some Medics, holding Amelia.

"Where's my boy?" The older woman looked around eagerly, and saw Emmett. "Have you seen him? He's a boy around your age, maybe a bit younger. Blonde hair, grey eyes," She said desperately. "Were you fighting with him?" Emmett swallowed.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry. He-Aaron-died fighting the shadow serpents," Emmett told her. He watched in sadness as the woman's face crumpled in grief and shock.

"My son-Aaron-dead?" Rosetta said in hushed tones. She sank to her knees. "No. No, that can't be." She inhaled, then started to cry.

"It's okay, Mom. It's okay." The young man who looked like an older version of Aaron squatted next to Rosetta and wrapped his arms around her, his grey eyes displaying total agony and grief. "Mother, look at me. It's Andrew. You still have me and Amy. It's okay, Mom. It's okay. He's in a better place now." And the young man, Andrew, broke down too. Emmett averted his gaze, grief consuming him as the family sobbed for their fallen son. Thankfully, the sight of his own parents and sister distracted him.

"Emmett!" His mother rushed towards him and hugged him, followed by his father and fourteen year-old sister. He embraced them back, a feeling of safety trickling back into his heart as they squeezed him and kissed him.