Chapter 17: A Battle Lost

Ash yowled out, "Firefly, Max! We gotta kill this thing, it's dangerous!" Ash jumped away as the deer ran at him. It missed, and got its antlers stuck in the tree. The deer quickly pulled its antlers out of the tree and turned around, glaring and snorting at Ash.
Max skidded in and lunged at the deer, landing on its back and digging his claws into the deer's side, biting down. It didn't do much affect; all it did was make the deer more angry. It bucked and kicked, making Max fall hard on the ground. Max scurried away as the deer almost stepped on him.
Firefly jumped over the deer, scratching the deer's back as he went over, then landing on the deer's other side. Usually, it'd make the deer bleed, but because of how tough the deer was, it did nothing. The deer whipped around and charged at Firefly, scoring an injury on Firefly's shoulder as its antlers scraped him there. Firefly yowled and fainted; he was bleeding out.
"Oh, great Lifebreeze!" Ash growled, "stupid deer! Max, we gotta get Firefly to Eclipse. We'll finish up this deer later!" Ash ran over to Firefly, dodging the deer's charge. He picked up Firefly, and Max ran after Ash, covering him despite he had a bit of a head injury.

Ash, panting, entered the healers' den. He laid Firefly down, who was moaning and knocked out. Max looked up at the cut on his head. "Eclipse?" Max said. Ash looked to see that Eclipse was standing over Twig, who was asleep with some injuries. Rusty was in there with some leaves over his shoulder, and Ash could see blood stains on it. Dust was laying down, head on his paws.
Eclipse turned around, and gasped. "Firefly!" she exclaimed, running over to him. "Firefly, are you okay?" She nudged him, and all Firefly did was moan, move his head a bit, and fell back to sleep again. "Oh no, what happened?" She asked, taking Firefly over to a moss bed.
"Oh yeah. Thanks for taking a look at my injury," Max snorted.
Eclipse looked slightly embarrassed and nodded to Max. "Lay down in a moss bed, Max, I'll get to you in a moment."
"What happened to Rusty, Dust and Twig?" Ash asked, trotting up to Rusty and Dust, who were both awake.
"They--" Nightgale began, but Rusty cut her off.
"I'll...tell you what happened," Rusty growled, "a...huge deer almost killed us! Twig is going to be in the healers' den for a moon, but Dust and I are getting out today. What happened to Firefly and Max?"
"We got attacked by the deer, too!" Ash exclaimed, "it almost killed Firefly when he tried attacking it. Max got slammed into the ground when he attacked it. And you know what? All the attacks we did inflicted no damage whatsoever! And when I was an apprentice, a deer just like the one that attacked today harmed me! It was supposed to be dead!"
Eclipse shook her head. "I don't know, Ash. Perhaps they couldn't kill it." She got a leaf and some weeds, and used Medicine Bending to levitate it onto Max's forehead. It placed down and wrapped around it. "Max, now you need to take it easy for the rest of the day. Stay in the healers' den." Max nodded, and Eclipse quickly ran over to Firefly.
Suddenly, Stella, Airia and Slice appeared in the door. "Geez, what happened?" Stella asked, "what, did a rabbit decide to murder you guys before it could murder you?" she snorted.
"No, Stella," Max snorted, giving a small glare, "a deer tried to murder us, thank you, and we only just got out alive. Now, it'd be nice if instead of teasing us, you could show us a bit of sympathy and compassion!"
Stella had sadness for them sparkle in her eyes, but it quickly went away, and the teasing, playful glint returned to her eyes. "Oh, you expect a Firebender to give sympathy and compassion?" she laughed. "Right..."
Max growled, "you're the one who said you're a nice Firebender! If you are nice, you should be sympathetic, shouldn't you?" Max turned away and went to go lay down next to the still-knocked-out Firefly in the corner of the room.
Stella rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Come on, Airia, Slice, we need to report to Hachiko that I was a cruel leader," she said, turning to leave.
Airia shrugged. "Sure." She followed Stella, and Slice followed after Airia.
"So, how long are they gonna be in here?" Ash asked Eclipse, hoping she wasn't still mad at him.
"Max will be out of the healers' den tomorrow. Firefly, however, will be released when Twig is released," Eclipse explained.
Ash nodded, and turned to leave. It was good that Eclipse wasn't still mad at him. But, Ash couldn't help wondering: what convinced her to be kind again?

Author's Note:
We gotta solve that mystery~