With a quick spring, Candi jumped up onto the platform and strode over to the third dais.

“Where are the bird women?” She asked as she took her place on the third dais at the center of the platform.

“You ask us. Who should we ask?” Anaïse retorted cooly.

Candi shrugged.

“I saw Valeria Marakesh flying this way with her condor as I was heading towards the platform. She was fifteen minutes ahead of me.”

Anaïse raised an eyebrow.

“That is odd. If she was flying towards the platform fifteen minutes ago, she should have been here by now.”

“We have seen neither of the birds up to this point.” Jenna Natoli looked away.

Candi frowned. Something must have occurred for Valeria Marakesh to be this late.

She scanned the air, looking for any signs of the raven or the phoenix, but aside from the ever-present visual-gathering hover pods, neither of the birds were in sight.

“Worry about yourself, Woman.” Jenna scoffed. “Be grateful you actually passed this portion of the event without killing yourself.”

Fifteen minutes later, lethargy began to get to her. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the animal heads were starting to stink in the heat of the midday sun.

Candi kept her mask on.

It not only helped to keep the stink down to an acceptable level, it also helped keep the sun’s rays from hitting her face directly. She turned to look at the women beside her.

Neither Anaïse nor Jenna had the luxury of masks. They were getting pounded on by the sun’s rays.

Suddenly, most of the visual-gathering pods abandoned the close-up visuals of three bored women on the dais and flew towards a figure coming out of the woods.

“Good Heavens! The black bird is walking towards us.” Anaïse muttered.

“What happened to her wings, for crying out loud?” Jenna asked no one in particular.

Candi said nothing, noting the peculiar angle of the raven’s left wing. It looked broken.

Valeria Marakesh was half lifting, half dragging the condor’s head along with her as she trudged with grim determination towards the platform.

She was bleeding heavily, trailing a line of blood from the forest edge towards the platform.

By the time she reached the glass platform, she could not even make it up the glass steps.

Candi sighed.

There was no competition for the dais at this point. All five of them should have been able to make it to the platform and this event should have ended half an hour ago.

She stepped off the dais and jumped down to help Valeria. On the other side of her, she noticed Jenna and Anaïse were doing the same thing.

With the three of them lifting and dragging, they managed to get Valeria onto the fourth dais with her condor head.

As Valeria sat on her dais trying to conserve energy, Candi pulled a kerchief and tied it around the raven’s claw to staunch the flow of blood. There were other wounds, but this one was the worst of them.

“What happened after you flew off with the condor head?” Candi asked as she tried to give what first-aid she could for the raven.

“Bethany was flying around looking for her lion but she wasn’t having any luck finding it. When she saw that I had gotten my condor head, she flew at me and struck me down from the air.”

“Why in the world would she do that?” Jenna stood with her arms akimbo in front of Valeria, trying to provide her with a bit of shade.

“She was afraid I would make it to the platform before she could find her lion.” Valeria rubbed her face with a tired hand.

Anaïse clicked her tongue.

“Tch, tch. Attacking an Avgo opponent with all these visual pods flying around capturing the evidence simply gets them thrown out of the event and disqualified. Don’t they know that?”

“Apparently not. Helene attacked me at the first platform, right in front of Lorem Ipsum.” Candi responded with a wry grin.

“What happened to her?” Anaïse’s eyes widened.

“I broke her back.” Candi said as she finished her ministration of Valeria’s leg.

“Oh did you???” Jenna’s mouth opened wide with glee.

“So Bethany didn’t even need to attack me.” Valeria turned to Candace, appalled. “Her position was already assured, even if it took her awhile longer to find the lion.”

“Yes.” Candi affirmed.

Valeria’s eyes flashed in anger. Her good wing stirred with dismay, even as her broken wing rested on her shoulder, unmoving.

“You broke your wing.” Anaïse muttered.

“It will heal. I will fly again.” She said tiredly. The pain was making her exhausted.

“Where is Bethany?” Jenna asked.

“I left her back in the woods.” Valeria stared into the depths of the forest.

“Is she still alive?”

“I did not kill her.” Valeria responded firmly.

“I’m sure the visual-gathering pods already have all that action captured.” Anaïse shook her head.

“All she needed to do was crawl her decrepit body onto the platform and she is assured a place in the next event, except she’s gone and disqualified herself. What a stupid bitch.” Jenna laughed with derision.

“There were no visual-gathering pods when were were fighting.” Valeria shook her head.

“What???” Anaïse turned to Valeria. “Aren’t those hover pods always around? I can never get rid of them. They fly around me day and night.”

“Same here.” Jenna scowled. “So how was it possible for you and her to be fighting without a single visual-gathering pod to capture it all?”

Valeria narrowed her eyes.

“She must have bought them all off and told them to keep away so she could get rid of me without any evidence.”

They all looked at each other with disgust.

Throughout the entire event, starting with the Butterfly Olivia Faraday, Bethany had been quite vicious. For her to turn against Valeria was something no one expected.

“Well it has caused something unexpected to happen.” Candi announced.

All three women looked in her direction.

“No visuals-gatherers means nobody knows where she is. It could be awhile before somebody finds her in whatever state she’s in.”

True to her words, it took three more hours before a team of people finally carried the red phoenix bird Bethany to the platform and placed her on the final dais.

She had no lion head with her.