“Dammit Zenia, you missed! I thought you never missed! That’s why you are here!” A male voice snarled.

“We should have never brought the brat.” Muttered a female.

“At least I wounded her! That’s more than any of you can say.” The teenager growled at the others in the hunting party. There was grumbling among the others, but no one retorted. The male that spoke sent a blast at the rock pile their quarry hid behind, but it failed to flush her out.

“Blast it all to the heavens! I can’t believe she’s evaded as again.” He curses under his breath as he looks to the east where brighter hues of a dingy orange sky with hint blue can be seen. A dust cloud was coming, as was the sun.

Zenia was no paying attention, trying to think of a way to catch the elusive bitch. The hunt was clearly not going well, like all the others before. This time they came in force, all the best hunters, yet they were still failing to capture the traitor. She seemed to be a phantom. None could get close to her in the sands and when she was in the rocks, she seems to go behind one and appear from behind another. The quick little devil also seemed to know where a blast was going to hit right before it landed and dodged every time. Zenia had only managed to wound her by releasing a barrage of blasts from her staff.

Zenia cursed the fact that they were limited with how many shots they could fire to try and slow the defector down to then capture them for the High Council. This full moon was the most powerful of the planetary year and so they brought a larger group to have more ammunition and still no one was able to succeed. Perhaps they truly were chasing a phantom. Who could live so long in this sandy waste land for so long?

She was staring after where the woman had last disappeared when she registered that it had gone quiet. And the surroundings were getting brighter. ‘Oh shit!’ She thought as she whipped around to see the others vanishing into portals. The last on closed before she could reach it. With a huff and scowl, she chanted and spun her staff. Nothing happened. She chanted again and still the air before her lay still. Panic rose as she realized that she had used too much magic. She didn’t have enough to open a portal to get home.

With this realization, she wanted to scrounge every once of power she had to try and open the portal, but without the others to assist, she’d be stranded if it should fail. Zenia began to pace as she tried to think of a solution in the brightening morn.

She had resorted to praying that someone would come for her when she felt the first scorching rays of the sun as it breached the horizon. Panic rose even more as she understood just how screwed she was. This was a wasteland, nothing but sand and rock. The sun cooked everything under its intense rays.

Swallowing hard, she wiped the sweat from her brow that had begun to gather with the increasing temperature. Shelter. She needed to find some place out of the sun. Then she could figure out her next steps.

She looked to the rock out cropping that the phantom woman had disappeared behind. If she was still there, they would have come out by now, would they not? Either way, it was as good a place as any to start. Brandishing her staff, she stalked over to the rocks hoping to find shade and nothing else.