I mean it, get me off... no not like that, Helen!

"What was that about not being tricked!?" Shouts Trixie, darting behind me for a body-shield.

Gabbie smacks herself in the glowing-face, ducking behind a tree. "I was too busy holding in laughter from Ashes pun to say anything! I'm sorry!"

A quickly whispered Incantation of Divine Wall is cast, but not before a hail of bullets are fired hitting me, Ashes, and Sammy. The projectiles sting badly, but don't pierce my scales; Ashes was thankfully only hit in the shoulder, where a thick layer of leather padding kept her from being wounded, instead being blasted off, and quickly flying away. Sammy... well, she seemed to be barely feeling a thing, as the round balls of metal simply displaced a bit of slime, which quickly reforms. The gunfire continues endlessly; cracking the barrier of golden light.

"What do we do!?" Says Scott, dashing to hide nearby; prone behind a boulder.

As Cilla seems to be trying to think of a plan; Eve is beginning an Incantation, adding pauses between some phrase.

"Error, compute."

"..."

"Green, bare fruit."

"Advantage, mine."

"..."

"Grow wild; Grand Vine!"

Plunging her mechanical fist into the soil, an ungodly number of vines spew forth from the earth; wrapping between several trees, forming an additional barrier between us and the hail of gunfire.

Zana pops several shots of Long Yield through the vines and barrier, busting holes into the skeletons; but not stopping them. "Their firearms are Enchanted; no doubt! Those are single-fire flintlocks, and they're producing actual metal bullets, unlike Firearm-Magic."

Rocky sprints as fast as his tiny legs can carry him, before ripping off his own head; chucking it onto the boulder Scott is hiding behind. Rising up to around three feet tall, the Golem begins looking around for more stones and pebbles, assembling stubby, yet functional legs from his old body. He waddles over to Zana, acting as living cover for his creator.

A bullet pierces the barrier,through the vines, and bouncing off Rocky; causing Trixie to yelp. "Feck off! You Annyoance!"

A scraping noise, akin to that of nails on a chalkboard, screeches out from behind the skeletons; this little hidden Utterance seemed entirely ineffective... possibly because they lacked ears.

"Shall we retreat?" Calls Scott from behind his new cover, a vine-coated tree. "Maybe come back later with a plan of attack?

"I have a plan!"

We all look at the Slime who has just said those words; an airhead at the best of times.

"Attack!"

Sammy quickly slips past the vines with ease, and dashes out of the barrier.

"No! Sammy!" Screams Cilla; a look of genuine dread suddenly darting across her face.

Peering past the vines, I see the Slimey Slugger doesn't listen; ignoring both her Teacher, and the bullets that barely even registered as an annoyance to her. The volume of bullets, however, seemed to be an issue; as they quickly started to add up within her see-through body, seemingly too tough to dissolve in the acidic ooze. I had thoughts of flying straight up and after her, until I saw something that instilled a new respect for my fellow Initiates intelligence.

Sammy displaced the bullets in her body over the front of her core for protection, and then sending spares to her arms, then to her hands; forming her fists into solidifed balls with the iron bullets acting as additional weight. Rushing the first skeleton, she swings the heavy-weighted fist into it's leg; shattering it to pieces, which seems to do nothing. She follows up with more crushing strikes: the arm, nothing. The chest, nothing; not even a core. The head...

"Yay! Found it!" Yells Sammy, as the skeleton goes limp; its head nothing but dust.

She then begins dashing from ones skeleton to the next, absorbing their bullets, and swinging harshly at their heads. After five more skeletons were destroyed, they seemed to finally understand that bullets were no longer of any use; drawing blades and clubs to attack close up.

"See! Attack!" Yells our smiling, sweet Slime; with the hail of gunfire stopped, we could now engage on our terms. "Go for the head, please!"

I see a teary-eyed, relieved, and proud Cilla smiling; who then begins an Incantation.

"Gone now, form of Elf."

"Now hop on, my other self."

"You face a furred storm."

"Worgenfaust: Hare Form!"

Jumping high over the vines and barrier, an unraveling Cilla spills out an emerald light before landing directly onto one of the skeletons; crushing its entire body in a single pounce. Two long, fluffy ears poked out of the rustling dust brought about by resulting crash of her plunge, and I can only imagine what else is past the kicked up dirt.

Zana tosses her Boomstick over and quickly mounts it, grasping her Side-Arm firmly; calling to Ashes. "Let's go!"

"Hells yeah!" The Saltmoore Duo fly over the vines as well, with the calling of "High Yield" and "Necrotic Shift" soon to follow.

Scott grabs my shoulder. "We can't let the ladies have all the fun, chap! Come on then!"

A click of a stopwatch, and we're suddenly on the other side of the vines. I say my thanks as I sprint off to try my best at crushing some skulls with one of those clubs the undead were using; hoping my transformation hadn't weakened my physical strength. As two sewing needles found their way into the eye-sockets of the closest skeleton, plunking it's head right off its body; it's club was released from it's grip as Scott swiftly stomped the thing's head into the dirt. Grasping what was seemingly just a bar of iron wrapped in leather, a blackjack I believe they're called, I crack it across the closest bone-head's boney head. The resulting shattering was as satisfying as it sounds; like smashing fine pottery into nothing more than shards of hardend clay.

A particularly painful slash finds its way across my back; right in a soft-spot between my wings, down the length of my back. I spin about to see a skeleton quickly darting back into the earth; the Moleman's corpse seemed to up and ready. Listening closely with my freshly-looted blackjack ready to strike. The rumbling, however, seemed to be rushing away from me, and back over towards where we once were; towards Gabbie. Bolting over, I'm stopped by a burning, headless skeletal body suddenly exploding past a now-destroyed tree; a giant golden fist poking past the obliterated bark.

"Not this time, dirt-bag!" Says Gabriella; her eyes still glowing brightly.

"Sis, that was so cool!" Says Ariel from atop her staff.

"Oh, Lord-Brother, please..." She whines, blushing.

Sighing with relief, I rush back into the fight; seeing an odd sight. A skeleton was currently whacking itself in the head with its own sword, the cause of which I spied through it's eye socket.

"Aye, yah pile'a'bones! Can't hurt a wee fairy? Makin' bags of this fight?"

It was hard to hold in my laughter as I ran past, cracking off the thing's sword arm with my new club. Trixie quickly exited the brainless bozo, allowing me to quickly bash his bones to dust. At last, only one skeleton remains, the rest reduced to mere corpses by the party; the Black Hood.

Eve, slowly taking her time to walk over to us; calls to us. "I'd be destroying those bones, if I were you."

As if on cue, the remains began quickly moving across the ground, when they were once lifeless husks; all gathering towards the Black Hood. As they did so, they began slashing or firing with their weapons, forcing us all to move away from any remains that could still grasp a weapon. Quickly they amassed, as Zana moved closer, and began Wide Yield blasting at it, and a certain Hooded Hare was hopping about, stomping what she could into dust.

"Do we really need his head?! Especially since it's skinless!" I call to our Compuro Companion; we kinda need to crush it...

She replies calmly, recognizing the situation, and walking to my side as though this were just a lovely sunset stroll. "At this point, they'll have to just take the cloak, as well as the word of myself and Sister Priscilla."

"Teacher!" Yells Sammy, who quickly sloshed towards Cilla. "Up! Up!"

Seemingly knowing what this means, the red hooded woman with new, long, powerful legs; covered in silvery fur, cocks back one of those same-such limbs. The Slime leaps up, turning into a blubbery ball. The bunny unleashes an ungodly kick, sounding more like a gunshot than any sort of movement of flesh, sinew, and bone; sending the Slime high into the air, above the Skeleton; who was now assembling into some sort of amalgamation beast; arms wielding swords, clubs, and guns writhing about as it grows ever larger.

Sammy calls out her only spell as she quickly heads up into the sky.

"Mimic!"

I can't even see what she turns into before she's too far up to get a good look. Ashes, however, seems to know the plan. With another "Necrotic Shift!" her Swift-Sting turns into a lashing whip, and shoots out to wrap around several of the limbs of the Black-Hood beast. Gunshots fire off from that side as it tries to break free. Scott follows suit, sending threads out to wrap yet more limbs on the other side; a bullet from the ensuring panicked firing hitting him in the leg.

"Gah!" He groans, holding fast as blood spurts out; his grip only tightening.

That's when I hear it; a familiar sound.

"...weeeeeeeeee..."

Zana fires yet more shots; this time targeting the many legs the bone-boss had pulled together; causing it to buckle under it's own weight.

"...eeeeeeeeeee..."

Taking a deep breath, I try to breath shadow-flame to destroy yet more of the creature; only for nothing to come from my mouth... well, that's embarrassing. Trying to save face, I rush over; bashing a few of it's many kneecaps in.

"...eeeeeEEEEEE..."

Rocky finally stumbling over to the fight with his stubby legs, and falls over; much like a turtle on it's back, he is then unable get up. "Big and strong! Big and strong!" He calls, still determined.

"...EEEEEEEEEE!"

An anvil, or should I say, a "Sam-vil'" crashes down into the skeletal abomination; not only obliterating it's skull, but also sending up as much dust as an explosion. Everyone (except Eve) begins a coughing fit, with Scott wincing and yelping in between wheezing for clean air. As the dust begins to clear, I spot the golden glow of Gabriella's healing; indicating our Tailor would just need to do a bit of stitch-work on his trousers.

Sammy pops out of the massive crater she had just created, holding aloft the black cloak of her kill; cheering like she had just won a prize. "Teacher! We did it! Boss, look what I got!"

With the dust fully cleared, I can finally see Cilla; changed as she was. She had grown several inches taller; all of which was from the extension of her legs. Those lower limbs had now taken on the fit, and lean form of the hind-legs of a rabbit (or hare, in this case.) Her new, long ears had flopped down over her face, no longer held aloft in alert. At her rear (now quiet the curvasious thing) was a puffy, small tail; the same shade as the rest of her fur. Her mane had shrunk quite a bit, and what little breasts she had in her Elf-Form had utterly vanished.

Where did her boots go? Eh, she'll tell me later...

Cilla smiles wide at her student; her two front teeth having visibly grown longer; it's rather cute, actually. "You did wonderful Sammy!"

I walk past the others, towards the mouth of the cave these bones had been guarding.

"So... should we keep going? Leave it as is? Come back after we get our pay?" I ask.

Sammy does the motion of cracking her knuckles; not that it could make any noise, as she has no bones, but it's the thought that counts.

"Keep going!"