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((The Father's Day Special -- page 22 of 24))
Four of the five winged spawn from earlier were soaring toward him again. Hector was ready this time, but he didn't need to be, because Roman zoomed down and barreled through like bowling pins, sending them all careening back down into the forest. Then Roman flew back up to the clouds, which were already attempting to regather.

The last winged spawn, the one that he'd shredded to pieces with his spikes, was almost fully reassembled on the ground, and it was already scratching at the base of Hector's tree. Its wings were still only half-formed and disjointed, but it seemed determined to get at him.

Hector launched himself up and away from the tree and glided over to the others, but in a background thought process, he was still evaluating the behavior of those winged monsters. They were all clearly gunning for him more than anyone else, probably at Chort's direction.

Did they have some kind of psychic link with their parent? It seemed likely. Hector hadn't seen the Beast giving any of them orders at any point, yet they always seemed to operate as Chort desired.

He might've expected Chort to go after Roman with those winged spawn, since Roman was the one actively sabotaging its efforts to create a storm, but no, it was sending them after Hector, instead. Why?

As if to answer that very question, Pauline's voice arrived in his head.

'Be careful,' she said. 'Your aura is greatly diminished. The others are more vulnerable now.'

His aura? Why would his aura--?

Wait, they were more vulnerable? What did she mean by that?

He would've asked her for more details, even in the midst of all this chaos, if he could've.

Instead, he just refocused on what he was doing, on dealing with that stirring in the crater.