'A bear? Are you kidding me? A fucking bear?! Where did that thing even come from? There shouldn't be any bears in Scotland, they went extinct centuries ago.'

Gritting his teeth in annoyance, hastening the harvesting process despite the new addition to the party. Bob darted from cover, scooping up a pair of the antler tines as he dashed into the fray, wielding the emerald antlers like a pair of daggers as a pair of puppets, controlled by the Spirit Animal, followed him into battle.

Upon seeing the approaching challenges, the bear's eyes almost glowed with the rage inside as it let out another bellowing roar. Standing on its hind legs, it remained towering over the puppets as it waited for them to get into range of its disembowelling claws.

It watched them grow closer, viscous saliva dripping from its stone covered jaw as hateful memories filled its mind, fuelling its hate and deepening its hunger for man-flesh.

Yet Bob wasn't stupid enough to run blindly into his opponents range, he wasn't born yesterday after all. In fact it had been almost two weeks since he was born! So how could he ever fall for something so simple?

Stopping a few metres away from the slobbering beast, his feet digging ruts in the ground as he skidded to a halt, Bob quickly lobbed one of the antlers. Sending the emerald dagger careening through the air, spinning end over end, until it plunged into the bloodshot eye of the armoured bear with a satisfying squelch.

As soon as its eye was pierced, the bear let out a bellowing groan of pain, quickly raising its armoured paw to shield its face from further pain just in time to block Bob's second dagger. The edge of the emerald dagger chipping visibly and leaving only a small scratch on the surface of the bear's earthen shell.

Slamming its paws down, causing the ground beneath its feet to crack and tremor, the bear returned to standing on all fours as it turned its remaining eye to the wretched creature that dared to blind it before breaking into a charge.

Lowering his stance, nary a shred of emotion or hesitation on his painted plastic face, Bob faced the barrelling behemoth. Staring it down as it quickly closed the distance as if he was about to try to stop this living freight train with his bare hands.

Of course, Bob would never have such ludicrous ideas nor could he appreciate the puns such ideas carried with them. Instead, as the bear charged towards him like a raging bull, he crouched like a tiger before springing into the air.

There were no fancy flips nor amazing feats of acrobatics that would gain him entry to a circus. No, it was more akin to trying to soften the blow when being hit by a speeding car.

His shoulder slammed into the back of the bear's head, narrowly avoiding the claws that were swung at him, as he was sent spinning.

Rolling down the bear's lengthy and fairly uncomfortable armoured back like he was falling down the stairs, as his fingers desperately searched for any form of purchase to stop his wild tumble.

After a few seconds, his hand wrapped around an odd, wooden outcrop jutting out from between two of the bear's earthen plates that made up its armoured shell. Bob didn't have time to wonder what it was, most likely a branch from a tree it had bypassed, as his body whipped to the side from the sudden halt.

If he had bones, then it was likely that such a movement would have dislocated something, but instead it was the bear that let out a roar of pain as his body wretched on the odd outcropping.

Using the thin branch as a hand hold, Bob secured himself on the bear's back as it stopped its reckless charge. The puppets, who had been slow to follow Bob into the fray, finally caught up and immediately got to work.

Under the careful eye of the Spirit Animal one of the puppets, one of the two remaining mannequins, valiantly leapt into the fray only to get smacked to the side by the bear's stone covered paw.

The mannequin was thrown a few metres by the animalistic, rage fuelled bitch slap, before landing in a heap. Deep grooves clawed into its plastic chest as the rough landing sent its limbs scattering as it rolled across the ground. When it finally stopped, slamming against the overgrown jungle gym, it left the mannequin in a ruined state. Naught more than a head, an arm and a torn apart torso. The Spirit Animal quickly severed the connection, not needing to spare it any more mental power, causing the mannequin to freeze where it was sitting as the false life that had animated it was stripped away.

The other puppet, a bleach white skeleton Seth had stumbled across, learned from the mistakes of the ghoul as it made its own charge. More accurately, the Spirit Animal learned from its own mistakes.

Ducking under the paw, the skeleton quickly closed the distance before stabbing its weapon, the same fragmented bone spear Seth used to slay the raven, towards the chest of the armoured bear.

The sharpened point of the makeshift weapon slipped between the gapes in its plating and plunged into its flesh, aiming to pierce through its heart. Yet even underneath all that stone armour, the ursine's hide was thick and tough, causing the point to barely reach its ribs never mind its heart.

Despite the failed attempt, or perhaps because of it, the bear let out another roar that sent spittle soaring through the air until it landed on the bleach white bones. Before the Spirit Animal could make the skeleton withdraw, the bear wrapped its jaws around the puppets skull and ripped it from the ground with little effort.

Its powerful muscles rippled underneath its armour as it shook the puppet back and forth before finally clenching its teeth, shattering the skull with such little effort it was as if it was crushing a grape.

Bob clambered up the beast's back and ripped the emerald dagger out of its ruined eye before plunging it towards its other eye, attempting to blind the bear. Yet the beast turned its head at the last minute, causing the blade to scrape harmlessly off the armour surrounding its head.

Before Bob could get another chance at the attack, the beast began to violently shake like a dog fresh from a pool and buck like a wild bull, desperate to rid itself of the unwanted passenger.

Hooking his fingers underneath one of its armour plates, Bob held on for dear life as he rode the bucking bronco, repeatedly stabbing into it over and over with the emerald dagger he held in his other hand. It was impossible to aim properly like this, so all of his stabs were simply wild and random, hoping to do as much damage as possible.

Eventually, however, the stone that he was so desperately clinging to cracked under the stress, sending the living mannequin careening through the air until he slammed into a nearby tree. Thankfully, not one that was intent on attacking him.

Free of its irritating passenger, the bear cast its gaze to the rest of the clearing. Its vision clouded in a veil of crimson, partly because of its destroyed eye that was weeping tears of blood but also because of the ever growing, insatiable bloodlust that urged it on.

Over and over it was injured, disrespected. It was an apex predator, yet it was being treated like mere prey to be slaughtered!

It could see the puppets still trying to contain the deer, the Spirit Animal working its hardest to control the herd with the ones it had left, its meagre skills not enough to send more into the fight. Just the ones it had sent were limited to simplistic movements and even that caused a couple of deer to escape.

But instead of the deer trapped in the cage of puppets, the enraged bear locked its eye on something else. The 'runt' of the human pack, the one that was sitting all alone plucking away at the antlers of the Jade Buck.

***

'Fucking Bollocking Shite!'

Seth cursed in his mind, becoming more frantic with his harvesting. A shiver crept down his spine as he felt the bear's attention land on him. Even though the Spirit Animal was controlling the puppets, he was ultimately the source of the connection and therefore was connected to them all. Usually he'd block out their senses, since so many at once was seriously disorientating, but this time it meant he could see the big fuzzy friend shaped death machine charging towards his back.

Even if he couldn't see it from a multitude of different angles, there was no way he'd not know it was coming straight for him as the earth trembled with every inch it grew closer. But it was that trembling that made him sweat even more.

He lifted one of the emerald daggers, stabbing it into the deer's skull and piercing its brain before kicking at the antlers that remained in one last desperate attempt to remove some.

Luckily, one strong kick was all it took to make the emerald crack, causing the antler to plop to the ground. Just in time for a gargantuan shadow to be cast over him as the bear loomed over his feeble form.

With another spittle shotgun of a roar, it tore its claws down through the air and sent a spray of blood splattering through the crimson grass.