Just as Sam was rushing the next monster, it burst into smoke on its own.  She glared at the haze skeptically, trying to figure out what the trick was–until it reformed as an ordinary pigeon.  The girl’s skepticism turned to confusion, which only deepened when she looked around and saw the other monsters turning into perfectly ordinary birds.

And in the middle of the street, no longer behind any aberrations, stood a woman.  She had a [i]definitely magical[/i] staff raised overhead.  And suddenly it began to rain.  Not a hard rain; it was a light drizzle easily shielded by holding her paws over her head.  It still wasn’t a normal rain.  Not with how that cloud overhead had come out of nowhere sometime during the…oh no, during the [i]battle.[/i]  She’d just fought a battle.

[color=FF4500][i]‘Worry later; work now.’[/i][/color]  Tamping down a rising panic, Sam ran after the woman as she dropped her staff into a puddle and stepped off the road.

[color=FF4500]“Excuse me!  Ma’am!  Do you…”[/color]  Sam stopped her words at the same time she stopped in front of the strange woman.  What did she want to ask?  Would this woman even have answers?  Certainly she looked antiquated enough to know something; but then again, Sam didn’t normally wear red hide and tribal tattoos.  Appearances were far from a useful metric.

Still, something about the woman felt older, and far more confident, than Sam did.  With a deep breath, she plunged ahead.  [color=FF4500]“What happened here?  What are those birds, are they still dangerous, and where did everyone else-?”[/color]