I heard the wolves barge in, the logs of the front gate crashing down onto the ground, creating dust clouds that I could feel from here. Clearly Motnja knew what was going on. I wondered where he could have been watching all of this. I took a quick peek back, and saw wolves emerging from dust clouds, sprinting at us in a perfectly straight line, thereby creating even more dust clouds. They were an impressive sight, like a team of animal mercenaries. Unfortunately, they weren’t on our side.

“YYYYYYAAAAAHHHHHHH!” I heard my dad scream, sprinting ahead of everyone!

“AHHHHHHHH!” I screamed, frightened by my dad’s scream.

After I shook off the initial shock of my dad’s shock, I quickly peeked behind again. Surprisingly, they weren’t gaining on us. I could have sworn that there were less of them too. Where could the rest be? I turned my head around and shook off the thought. Probably just all the dust playing tricks on my eyes. I heard a faint pitter-patter in front of us.

And that’s when it hit me.

“Guys! Stop running! We’re being surrounded!” I shouted, but it was already too late. We skid to a halt as rows of wolves blocked our escape. I looked back. The other wolves had caught up. I looked to the sides, only to find all the pathways and alleys blocked off by even more wolves.

We were trapped.

My dad panicked, Tsara growled, and I willed spirit energy into the tip of my paintbrush, ready to strike grey into all of these wolves. Just as I was ready to release the first stroke. A metal thingy jumped down from a weeping willow. It was a humanoid shape, but entirely made of metal, with a glass sphere in the middle. The sphere was filled with nothing - a void of colour, and it was guarded by crosses of metal.

“AHAHAHAH! After all these centuries of cat and mouse, I’ve finally got you! This game is over! And finally too!” the hump of metal rattled with a maniacal laughter.

Tsara growled, and send me a mind message.

“That’s Motnja.” Somehow, she sent me this mind message through gritted teeth.

“As you can see, I’ve gotten a new, nearly indestructible host.” He gestured at himself with metal arms.

I took a step back, and threw a stroke of grey at him. It bounced right off.

“You may have forgotten, so I’ll remind you. Your paint can’t do any physical damage. You may as well give up.” He took a few steps our way.

So obviously, I gave a loud scream, and threw him a barrage of strokes. The result was me panting, and him annoyed.

“Tsara, you clearly chose the wrong candidate. Well, time to finish my job.”

A metal hand shot out, grabbed Tsara by the neck, and retracted back. Tsara was struggling to breathe. But what could I do? Paint wouldn’t work. Throw a rock at him? He was made of metal. When I think back on it, there are hundreds of things I could have done, like distract him. But I was at a stupidly complete loss.

“You sapped all my spirit energy hundreds of years ago! Now I will sap your very spi – “

“YEEEHHAAAWWW! COMIN’ THROUGH!” a distinctly Hermit voice shouted. I looked up, and saw Hermit riding a wooden sled with a seat in the front carved out just for him, and there were wooden pegs all around the border of the sled. He straight out crashed through all the ranks of wolves!