Recap: In a storm-swept showdown of epic proportions, the shamanic sorceress, Mistral, squared off against her dark nemesis, Bgel! Her gamble? A daring mind dive spell—oaught by the enigmatic Dragoo uhe mystery of the shadows that shrouded her foe’s soul! But the odds were steep!

  The fate of the mysterious darkness within Bgel hung in the bance as Mistral defied the warnings of her trusted partner, Garou the heroic Werebeast of the Great North, whed her tet her quest for redemption. Is she doomed to lose everything in the name of hope?

  A brilliant pn, ohat maniputed Bgel’s own ego, saw Mistral victorious—her foe was blinded by pride, leaving the door open farou to strike, sinking his fearsome fangs into their foe! But when Mistral dove too deep into the mindscape of Bgel, she was met with the full force of the dark energy lurking within. Unprepared for the terror lurking there, Mistral's psyche fractured, and with a brutal jolt, she was knocked unscious!

  Trapped within the very darkness she sought to defeat, Mistral’s mind fought to protect itself from the malevolent force, but the question remains: will she be ed by the very darkness she tried to save her enemy from? Though she successfully evaded being ed by the darkness within her, she found herself in the dark clutches of her nemesis!

  The foundation of Mistral’s ice-based shamanic superpifted by the Great Manitou to her had been torn from her as Bgel used her mystical abilities to siphon out the three beasts imprisoned within Mistral to toy with as she pleases.

  The stakes have never been higher! Mistral escape Bgel’s hidden bunker before it's too te, without her power to and the power of cye typhoons, blizzards, hurries, rainstorms, typhoorical storms and more? Mistral win her freedom from Bgel’s grasp with the very powers that made her vulnerable to her sworn nemesis?

  Stay tuned for the pulse-pounding issue of Mistral: Weather Witch!

  Mistral bit her lip hard enough to nearly draw blood. The sting was a desperate tether, keeping a distressed whimper from esg.

  "You haveertained me nearly as long as I’d hoped, luv," Bgel gloated, her smirk sharp and cruel. She traced a finger over her lips in a teasing, sensual gesture, her eyes glittering with amusement.

  “It’s been fun, truly, but pying the same game too loiresome.” Her tone grew nguid, almost bored, as she toyed with her thoughts. “I could use a ge of sery, don’t you think? Shake things up, get the juices flowing! Now that I’ve mastered those darling little Beasties of yours, I’m thinking…” She tapped her theatrically, her grin spreading. “Aha! Vancouver! Yes, that’ll do nicely. And while we’re at it, let’s throw ile! Those dreary cities already adore their endless drizzle… how do you think they’ll feel about ive eighty-degree temperatures?”

  She burst into peals of ughter at her own macabre joke, so intehat tears pricked at the ers of her eyes. “Oh my… tears! I haven’t ughed this hard in ages.”

  Her gaze fell baistral, still trapped in the cruel grip of the spelled stocks. A thoughtful purr rumbled ihroat as a new idea slithered into her mind. Her tongue flicked over her lips in a gesture of dark delight.

  I’ll take her with me. Let the world see her as she is—broken, powerless. How utterly delicious!

  A hissing gale of voices erupted inside her mind, like a storm barely tained.

  Nooooooo!!! Mistress Angel! If you take her, she’ll find a way to— Howeesha’s frantic voice warned.

  Shhhhhhh, Rosshossho’s icy toerrupted, colder than winter’s heart. Don’t spoil the fun. I, for one, would savor seeing the ‘favored daughter’ forced to watch her own powers wreak havoc.

  Speak for yourself, fool! a thunderous voice growled in dissent.

  Traitor! Howeesha screeched, his voice pierg like a lightning crack.

  Bgel’s temper snapped, and she struck her own temple hard enough to make her head ring. “SHUT UP, YOU BUMBLING STOOGES!” she bellowed.

  As thrilling as it was to manipute the Earth’s elements at her whim, the ceaseless bickering of these three fools grated on her nerves. Although they were useful, occasionally, their squabbling was insufferable.

  Y-yes, Mistress… the trio whimpered in unison, their voices like a storm cowed into submission. Bgel allowed herself a smug smirk. Yes, that was exactly how it should be.

  With a sigh, she rubbed her temples, her gaze returning to Mistral. Yes… a fine idea ihe thought of parading her broken nemesis before the world sent a dark thrill through her. Her lips curled into a predatory smile. “A—”

  No… Mistress… hissed another voice, soft but insistent, slithering from the depths of her mind.

  Her patience shattered. Her eyes bzed with fury as she mentally shed at the voices. Which of you worms dared to interrupt me this time? Her thoughts crackled like a storm about to break. One more word, and I’ll cast you into the deepest abyss where even chaos ot find you!

  Mistral chuckled softly, the sound bitter and raw ich-bck void. Watg Bgel visibly struggle with the squabbling voices in her head was the only fragment of soce she had left. That petty amusement was her fragile lifeline. Without it, the crushi of reality would smother her pletely—a reality where the ache between her shoulder bdes still burned from the st sh Bgel had delivered with chilling precision.

  How long had it been? Hours, days, weeks? Time dissolved into nothingness here.

  The "games" Bgel pyed could hardly be called that. They were lifted from the depths of some grotesque S&M hellscape—more torture than py. Mistral had been robbed of nearly everything. Bgel had stripped her freedom to move, her sense of sight, her power. And, most harrowingly, her right to say no.

  But this wasn’t simply about breaking her body—no, that would’ve been far too mundane. Bgel didn’t just want her physically shattered. Pain was just oool in her arsenal, one end of a vast and twisted spectrum. What truly drove the viliness was the prospect of breaking Mistral’s will, her spirit, no matter the tool she used. Pleasure was used more often than pain.

  And, to Mistral’s deep shame, it was w.

  She could feel it—the cracks widening inside her. The realization had sunk in, g its way into her psyche, but some small, stubborn part of her refused to let go of the facade, to truly front it.

  “They’re a handful, aren’t they?” Mistral’s voice was hoarse, shaking but defiant.

  Bgel didn’t respond, her focus turned inward, seemingly locked in a heated, silent versation with the warring voices inside her head.

  Mistral’s heart raced. A single, desperate thought pulsed through her: She’s distracted.

  Great Manitou, I beg you. Please… deliver me… now.

  Your desperation is unbeing, Favored Daughter, the Great Manitou’s voice resonated, calm and unwavering. We have spoken of this before and we will not again. I ot help you if you refuse to help yourself.

  Mistral’s breath hitched, her tears spilling anew.

  “I refuse to help myself”? Mother, I’ve been humiliated in ways too vile to t! She proposes even worse…! I—I ’t hold out any longer!

  She has vioted your corporeal form and trodden on your pride, the Manitou replied. Leave these things behind. They are but flesh and shadow. Rise beyond them. You ot do what must be done unless you transd yourself. Do not pray to me again. Your deliverance lies solely in your own hands.

  Mistral’s chest shuddered as silent sobs wracked her immobilized body. Her mind screamed in protest, but outwardly she remaioill. Her tormentor would not grant her even the dignity of motion.

  Mother, please! I beg you!

  There is a glimmer of hope, the Manitou intoned, her voice final. A speck of light hidden deep in the void. Find it, and sider well my words, Daughter.

  And just like that, the Great Manitou’s presence faded, leaving Mistral aloterly alone.

  Tears trickled from the ers of her eyes, unbidden and unstoppable, her shoulders trembling uhe weight of hopelessness. Every part of her screamed to shrink away, to fold in on herself, to retreat into the smallest possible space—but Bgel had robbed her even of that.

  She y still, a prisoo the cruelty of both her captor and the seemingly indifferent os. A, somewhere in the vast abyss of her despair, a sihought flickered: A glimmer of hope.

  When Bgel’s eyes cleared, she exhaled a slow, wry sigh, brushing a stray lock of jet-bck hair from her face.

  “Very well,” she murmured, her voice tinged with mnation. “It’s true that, once freed from the bindings holding her, she may prove less... pliant.” Her gaze lingered on Mistral, studying her like a once-prized artifaow tarnished and fotten. Her lips curved into a smirk that failed to hide her disappoi. “Perhaps there’s a shred of that bae left. I should, I suppose, pay my respects to the formidable child she once was.”

  The weight of her words hung in the air, cold and cutting, but Bgel offered no further entary. With a final, dismissive gnce, she turned away from what remained of her ex-rival. The great Weather Witch Mistral, once a force of nature, was reduced to little more than a broken pything—a toy with st few secrets left to uncover.

  As Bgel exited the chamber, her heels echoed sharply against the cold, unyielding floor. At the threshold, she reached for the switd, with a flick, extinguished the dim glow of the cavern. The world fell silent and utterly dark as Mistral lunged bato the same all-ing bess that had bee her stant panion.

  Unbeknownst to the dark one, however, a pair of sharp, yellow eyes glinted from the shadows. Their gaze redatory, narrowing as Bgel’s wings unfurled and carried her northward into the starless night. She soared away from the lonely expanse of desert he Mexico border in New Mexico, her sanctum now momentarily unguarded.

  The figure hidden in the gloom shifted, a silent ripple of i moving through the oppressive stillness. The time to act was now.

  With Bgel gone, all of Mistral's exhaustion came crashing down on her, dragging her into an unscious abyss. It was not the peaceful kind of rest that mended wounds; her body may have been still, but her mind was tormented. Even in the depths of sleep, her cheeks were damp with tears, evidence of grief that refused to give her even a moment's reprieve.

  This time, her slumber carried her into a ing maelstrom of darkness. It swirled with the elemental forces she had onanded effortlessly, now corrupted and twisted into something alien and sihe energy had Bgel's mark upon it, that oily wrohat felt like rot and decay iing the soul. Her powers were no longer her own but were being turo monstrous ends, co-opted into something she barely reized.

  Or perhaps it wasn’t her power at all. Perhaps it was simply Bgel's malice taking form, a parting torment even in her absence.

  The Beasts of the storm—those capricious entities of wind, water, and fire—had always been chaotic but not evil. They were forces of nature, unbound by morality, ag only on whims and ditions. But now, their essence felt twisted, ed in a darkhat seeped from Bgel. It wasn’t the malevolence of demons Mistral had faced before—she had battled emissaries of Hell and survived. No, this darkness felt older, a void-like hunger beyond malice or reason. It devoured and assimited, leaving nothing untouched.

  It wasn’t Bgel’s power alone, Mistral realized. The vilin herself risoner of this primordial force, wielding it at a terrible cost. The thought chilled her further, sending a ripple of ahrough her unscious form.

  Then, from the depths of her torment, a new sensation pierced the dark. Mistral’s awareness flickered; she felt something outside. Something brushed her skin—or was it a trick of her imprisoned mind? Fear jolted her awake for a fleeting sed, the phantom sensation lingering even as she sank bato fitful sleep.

  Would Bgel return before she woke? Would her captor dream up new ways to desecrate her body, to wrench her spirit further into despair?

  There was no escape, Mistral khat. She’d tried again and again, only to find herself thwarted by the intricate magiding her. Her restraints weren’t merely physical but tied deeply to Bgel's lifeblood, their power impermeable to her own weakened will. Each failed attempt drove her further into despair, further into herself.

  How far she had fallen. How utterly broken she had bee. These thoughts whispered to her, seductive in their bleakness. What hope was left when she couldn't even find sanctuary within her own mind?

  Perhaps it would be better not to wake at all, she thought bitterly. The idea was cruelly tempting—aernal retreat into darkness, where she wouldn’t have to ehe pierg gaze of her tormentor or the humiliations that followed. Could she pray to the Great Manitou to release her from this life? Even if the act of dying ainful, it had to be kihan the endless agony she faced.

  But the Great Manitou had already denied her that release. She had no choice but to eo survive.

  And so Mistral sank further. She retreated deeper into herself, seeking not peace but an end. Her thoughts spiraled, mirr the cye of malevolent energy in her dreams. The eye of the storm called to her, being her downward.

  Deeper.

  And deeper.

  And deeper still.

  The outside world faded entirely, leaving her suspended in an infinite, oppressive void. She tio sink, driven by a desperate o reach the bottom—to reaething. But the further she desded, the more she realized there was no end, no bottom.

  Then, as if colliding with an unseen barrier, Mistral stopped. It wasn’t a physical halt; it was something more profound, as though her very essence could go no further. The darkness pressed against her, its weight both suffog and infinite.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Something a stirred in the void, not seen but felt. It didn’t move or speak, but its presence filled her with a primal dread that froze her in pce. Whatever it was, it had been waiting for her.

  After what felt like ay suspended in the darkness, something shattered the void. A hand spped Mistral’s face, the sharp sting shog her from the depths of her inner prison.

  Her body flinched involuntarily, but she quickly cmped down on the urge to react further. Screaming would only embolden Bgel, and Mistral couldn’t endure another round of her tormentor’s cruelty. Swallowing her despair, she slumped deeper into her sleep, feigning submission. Why bhting? She didn’t want to live anymore.

  Then came another sp, harder this time.

  A low rumble followed, rolling through her sciousness like distant thunder. Korakorkomaq. The name sprang unbidden to her mind, the echo of Bgel’s dominion htning and thuhe sound reverberated, cruel and endless, firming her assumption. Bgel must have grown bored again, funtiolen power, using it to taunt and punish.

  But the rumbling persisted. It wasn’t the usual sharp crack of lightning, nor the deep, eg thundercps she was used to. This was something else, tinuous and guttural, almost like a voice.

  Another sp struck her cheek, more insistent tha.

  Mistral ched her jaw and shut herself off further, refusing to react. If Bgel wanted a dispy of anguish, she’d find none here—not this time. Let her waste her effort.

  The sps didn’t stop, nor did the rumbling.

  The noise wasn’t a taunt, she realized, but something deeper, resonating at the edges of her awareness. There was a rhythm to it, like a call. And the sps weren’t painful anymore; they were steady, purposeful, pulling at her, demanditention.

  Mistral squeezed her eyes shut tighter in defiance, retreating to the ohing Bgel hadn’t takeubborn resolve. Her captor had stripped away her dignity, her autonomy, her powers—but she still had her refusal. She could deny Bgel her satisfa. Even if it meant lying to herself, even if it was a hollow victory, it was hers.

  The hand struck her again, not as a blow but as a jolt, like a heart's desperate st beat before surrender.

  The rumbling deepehe vibrations growing stronger, more insistent.

  And then came a voiot Bgel’s, vaguely familiar, whispering through the void with an authority that rattled her to her core.

  “... Wake up.”

  Mistral’s resolve wavered. No, it ’t be...

  The sp came again, and the voice grew louder.

  “... Mistral.”

  Her eyes fluttered, the fai spark nition flickering against the crushing darkness. Something—or someone—was reag for her, and for the first time in what felt like ay, she wasn’t sure she wao stay buried. She was destroyed for life.

  Garou’s furious howl echoed through the cavern, reverberating off the walls and disappearing into the oppressive darkness. The sound carried the weight of anguish and helplessness, a primal cry torn from the depths of his soul. He fell to his knees beside Mistral, panting heavily, his cws trembling as he gripped the edges of her cruel bindings.

  His fshlight beam wavered across her face, and for a moment, her features—sunken, pale, and eerily still—appeared almost unreizable. It wasn’t just her body Bgel had ravaged; her very spirit seemed fractured, like a gss figuri in the grip of a careless child.

  Garou squeezed his eyes shut, willing away the tears that matted his fur. He was ner to battles, ner to death. But seeing this—seeing her like this—was more than he could bear. She was Mistral, his partner, his mehe unshakable force of nature he had always relied upon, admired, even loved in his own way. She was the storm itself, wild and untouchable.

  And now she was nothing more than a broken shell.

  “Damn it…” he growled again, his voice crag.

  His cws twitched against the ented stocks, ag to rip them apart even though his strength and fury had already proven useless. He couldn’t give up, but his mind swirled with frustration. No matter how much effort he poured into this, nothing seemed to work.

  Garou let out a long, low snarl, his body trembling as he rose to his feet. His golden eyes, burning with raw emotion, sed the chamber. It was barren save for the crude stocks that imprisoned Mistral, and the faint, almost imperceptible shimmer of Bgel’s cursed magic that g to the air like a heavy fog.

  He crouched back down aed his paw-hand on Mistral’s shoulder, gehis time.

  “Mistral,” he said hoarsely, his voice soft now, pleading. “It’s me. It’s Garou. You have to e bae. Please. I know you hear me in there. I know she hasn’t takehing from you—not yet. Wake up.”

  He shook her shoulder lightly, his desperation growing.

  “You’ve faced worse than this, haven’t you? You’ve looked gods in the eye and told them to shove it. You’re strohan her. I know you are, Mistral.”

  Her head lolled slightly at his touch, but she gave no other response.

  “Damn it, Mistral…” Garou muttered, his cws curling into fists. “Don’t let her win. Don’t let her break you. Not you, not like this. I ’t—”

  His voice cracked again, a down hard to silence himself.

  Garou’s gaze dropped to her face more, and his expression softehe rage giving way to sorrow. He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from her face, his cws surprisingly tender.

  “I swear to you, I’ll find a way to break these s,” he murmured. “If it takes every st ounce of strength in my body, I’ll get you out of here. But you’ve got to fight too, Mistral. Wherever you are, whatever she’s doo you, you have to fight.”

  He paused, swallowing the lump in his throat.

  “You’re not alone, dammit. You hear me? You’re never alone.”

  For a long, agonizing moment, the cavern was silent save farou’s bored breaths and the faint hum of Bgel’s magic. Then, somewhere deep iillness, a faint shiver passed through the air.

  Garou’s ears perked, and his eyes darted to Mistral’s face.

  “e on,” he whispered. “e bae, Stupid.”