24 Making changes (1/2)

Part 1

Evlin loves animals. when she was younger she got a little traumatized when the small black cat that her parents gave to her sister as a Christmas gift ended up dying due to an unfortunate disease. She herself wasn't all that attached to the small feline but seeing her sister so devastated after their separation inspired her to never try and get a pet for herself.

As the years went by thought, she got introduced to many friends at school who had pets at home and would often invite her to play with them. At first she went along just for the sake of being polite, trying to keep a safe emotional distance in case something similar would happen in their future. And, just as she expected, many of her friends ended up depressed after losing their precious animals due to a sudden illness, the coming of old age or sometimes a case of car accident.

Raising pets was a recipe for a future heartbreak since these lovely creatures were much more fragile than a regular person. Seeing the pain of others made her scared of feeling that same pain herself at some point, so she always secretly would tell her parents to not give her a pet as a present.

During one of her visits to her grandmothers house however she received some surprising change of heart. Evlin was extremely close to her grandmother since she was the youngest granddaughter of the family. Playing with Evlin would often remind the old lady of her times when she was just starting as a mother.

On one of her birthdays she was presented with an adorable white bunny from Evlin's uncle which worried her because she didn't think such an old lady would have a heart strong enough to deal with the eventual pain that animals could bring. But despite thinking like that, Evlin started to realize the magic that taking care of a pet could create when she started to look at her grandmother making smiles that she had never seen before while raising that small rodent. She believed that letting her grandmother take care of it would backfire in a tremendous way but it seems like the small creature was actually bringing back years of her life by spending each day together with her.

Seeing how much joy that white bunny was giving her grandmother Evlin decided to get closer to it for her sake, and before she noticed, she feel in love with it. Maybe it's because she was the youngest child but the feeling of taking care of something so small and delicate was completely new and hypnotizing for Evlin, and after that she basically turned into a completely different girl.

Every time one of her friends would call her to play with their pets Evlin would rush like a bullet at the first chance she would get. She never said no to the offer of meeting new animals or hanging out with them. To the point where her mother was forced to take her to the zoo every year for Evlin's birthday or as a reward each time she did extremely well during exams.

So it's safe to assume that the moment she noticed that gang of hunters mistreating that griffin and putting all those creatures in cages, something inside of her started to snap. For the last few days many things were on her mind. Protecting Ashley, saying farewell to Dalla, challenging Xadi, meeting Marceus, reaching Emerald Dawn, but suddenly none of that mattered anymore. Catching a glimpse of that demonstration of animal abuse had shifted all of her gears towards one new goal, protecting those creatures.

After making sure that Ashley was in a safe place Evlin rushed towards the area where the hunters were performing their crime. She could hear her new sister trying to call her out and asking her to go back, but it was hopeless, Evlin was acting on autopilot by that point. She modeled all of her wood armor towards her legs and performed a massive jump above the trees followed by landing on top of one of the hunters that were harming the griffin with it's whip.

The hunters all stopped what they were doing and stared at the young girl that had appeared from the sky bearing a look on her face that was holding so much fury it could make bystanders start to ask who was the real beast in that situation. One of the hunters approached Evlin and started to question her.

”You again? Didn't you just run away a few second ago? Who are you?”

Evlin shifted her armor towards her arms making a pair of wooden gauntlets and sent that hunter flying upwards with an uppercut. A few second after he finally returned form his little flight and got smacked against the ground Evlin decided to answer his question.

”Karma...”

Part 2

Ashley was desperately rushing across the forest trying to find Evlin. That crazy girl had a psychotic look on her eyes as if she was finally ready to kill someone. She had seen Evlin upset or angry before many times when she would return from a stressing quest from the guild. But maybe it's because Ashley never really had a chance to see Evlin in the battlefield but that was the first time she looked so scary.

Because of how fast she was with her healing magic boost Ashly ended up staying really far from where the hunters were camping, but she managed to find the location after hearing the sound of battle not too far from where she was. She took a peek from behind the trees and saw Evlin fighting like a demon against the entire group of hunters.

Her crossbow was completely gone and so was her backup necklace, which means that all of her extra wood was being used to power up her arms and legs. Ashley was pretty sure she had heard that Evlin always had a combat-style focused on safe distance use of long-ranged magic attacks and would only try to rely on close combat during emergencies. But what she was looking at was not even close to what people described to her.

Evlin was fighting like some kind of angered beast constantly going for fist attacks or fast kicks on every chance she got. The hunters kept trying to capture her with their whips or slash her with their swords but if she wasn't easily dodging all of them with her superior agility she was grabbing their weapons and using it to thrown them against the ground. She was looking less like a mage and more like a martial arts master.

At one point she even grabbed one of the hunters by the leg and used him as a human bat to hit on other hunters. One of them tried to go for the whip again but she simply grabbed it before it could reach her and started to spin it like a whirlwind. Why was this girl trying to learn more elemental magic? It looked she was controlling wind magic right now, is what Ashley was thinking.

As the fight kept dragging on the number of hunters kept falling more and more. It looked like it was going to be an easy win for the little mage. But as Ashley was thinking that, she noticed that one of the hunters actually managed to land a hit on Evlin somehow.

”Aaaargh!!”

She received a cut on her left arm from a knife that moved so fast that Ashley thought it's owner was some kind of ghost for a second. The Lady holding the knife started to talk.

”Why are you bullying my men little girl?”

”Your men...? So these guys work for you?”

”They are my family young miss... And i don't treat kindly those who harm my family!”

”Well, your family is not treating these animals very kindly either...”

Evlin was trying to look composed but she was actually in a huge state of shock. How did that woman managed to hit Evlin with her boosted speed? No one should be able to keep up with her, especially with her re-forced leg armor. Whoever this lady was, she was a much bigger trouble than the rest of the hunters.

”Just doing business sweetie... Griffin's wings sell for a very high price, and there are many adventures who love to use these creatures as target practice for developing their skills. It's just a matter of giving people what they want.”

”I didn't ask to hear your dumb justifications... You wanna harm these creatures, you will have to deal with me first!”

”As you wish... Back off boys... I'll deal with our little monster-lover!”

The woman threw her dagger towards Evlin who raised her arm in a attempt to deflect it, but the dagger ended up tearing apart a piece of her gauntlet and created a huge scar on her arm.

”Kaaaahhhh!! What was that???”