The forest was dark. Way dark. Toby wasn’t used to wandering around Colander Forest after midnight, and the moon wasn’t doing anything to help

either. As he moved forward through the thick brush Toby’s foot suddenly jerked backward, nearly compromising his balance. He stifled a gasp, trying to keep as quiet as he could. Looking down, Toby breathed a sigh of relief, finding his boot simply caught under a tree root.

“Ssshh!” clouzi hissed at Toby from up ahead. Toby looked up from his rooted position and realized the two of them had come into a clearing

surrounded by thick bushes, wild vines, and trees clustering together-all converging on them like a pack of wolves. “It’s been following us for the last five minutes,” Clouzi explained in a hushed tone.

“What? Why haven’t we done anything then?” Toby whispered back under his breath. Quikly, he unhooked his boot and moved over to Clouzi.

“It’s tailing us from a distance,” Clouzi repied, “but it’s been getting closer. I can sense it very nearby.” Toby had never believed Clouzi could have

such a serious look in his playful eyes, such focus. Somehow, Couzi understood the danger of the situation, and the carefree persona was gone.

Toby was not as calm as Clouzi though. He had no idea how he and Clouzi were going to defend against whatever was out there, creeping around in

the underbrush at the darkest hour of the night. He was literally shaking in his new boots. From the look of Clouzi and the others he had already met, Toby would have never thought of Magimon as dangerous.

“There!”Clouzi shouted suddenly, shattering the nite’s silence and breaking Toby out of his thoughts. Clouzi’s high pitched, three year old voice rang

out again, “Tiny Snow Blizzard!” A stream of air flecked with tiny glistening white clumps spewed out of Clouzi’s mouth. A bush caught in the subzero aircurrent was a ball of cyrstals seconds after. Toby’s eyes were staring, wide through his goggles. His chest was heaving, working overtime to catch up to the jump his heart had just taken. But there was no time to recover his composure.

Moments after Clouzi’s astounding feat, the bush next to the one hit by a mini ice age shook. It rustled. So there was definitely something there.

<And now it knows that we know its there,> Toby thought.