It's in the morning when I hear it first- you know, every now and then an alarm clock won't suffice.

So instead, I wake up to the lovely sound of, "YOU CAN'T MAKE ME! I'M INVINCIBLE NOW! YOU ARE PAWNS OF A GREATER POWER! I'M FREE! FREE FROM THE MADNESS!"

"This really isn't going to end, is it?" Glaze asks. 

Twitch is still yelling down the hall, same as all night, but somehow now I want to bite his head off even more than before. Really, now that it's morning, my restlessness has drained into my paws and sharpened my claws. I wish I could just sleep, but maybe I'll settle for the worlds longest afternoon nap.

"You might want to come see him. Avery found out what was wrong." suggests Flare.

"He's going to die, isn't he?" I say, not even surprised when she replies, "We're almost definite of that, yes. I'm very sorry."

"You're probably alone in that." Fyera says. "He's been yelling all these really, really off topic conspiracy theories. None of them make any sense either. I didn't kill Terra, it was-"

"Why does everyone keep talking about Terra's death? What happened?!" I ask, and then Flare and Fyera are both looking at me as if I had told them I found Twitch's conspiracies interesting and relevant to our problems at paw as of now. As both were untrue, I was a bit surprised.

"Terra... she was a good friend. Died because her powers stopped working. As Fyera was around, and it was recently discovered she was a Forhaga, Twitch tried to spread it around it was Fyera's fault. The problem is that Fyera believed it more than any of us." Flare says sadly.

Fyera says nothing, flicking her tail. "I'm going to pay my respects." she says, though the curve of her voice when she says 'respect' indicates that that's far from the case.

Flare gives her a quick look of skepticism. "I'm coming too." I tell Flare, then dip my head.

She watches as we leave, saying nothing. I can tell she's struggling to suppress telling us both not to go in there and completely ruin the mood, but I know Fyera doesn't care at all who she hurts sometimes. Especially if it's a small brown animal with a fiery tail whose name happens to start with a 'T'.

Fyera keeps a brisk pace, not mourning or smirking and underplaying the situation. Overall, what she does do is more terrifying- she's brutally calm. As if she's going to a nice, daily, typical thing instead of a murder.

I remember she looked no different when Katrina died. She was much more sad, yes, but something inside her has shut down, something long made immune to death and the pain of others.

Something I've seen in Auma, at another time, the feel of war to her. She's just better at hiding it.

Fyera presses the button and the door opens, moving back into the wall to let us enter. Twitch is strapped to the wall, Thistlepatch watching him in pure terror. Slowly, Twitch swings back and forth on his little metal slab, which makes an ugly creaking noise. Avery is watching, her horn softly lit with pink light in the curving spiral of it. She lays it against Twitch, who snarls, snapping his teeth at her.

"Does he have the plague?" I ask cautiously, unsure if I'm standing next to just a crazy Teeyu or a completely and utterly insane Plague victim.

"No. He overdosed on cider deliberately, enough to kill him. It was intentional at that, and he won't tell me why he did it. Thistle refuses to cooperate."

"I don't know either." Thistlepatch snarls, "I just know it's your fault. All of you."

I look at Fyera, who walks calmly up to Twitch. "You're making a mistake, throwing your own life away." She tells him kindly. "A huge one."

"Right, Fyera. I would rather stay here with you forever. Everyone knows what a great friend you've been to me." He says in a sickeningly honey-sweet tone.

Fyera keeps her eyes trained on him, the two of them engaged in a battle of dominance. It's a terrifying thing to look at, Fyera's eyes more Felid then they've ever been. She doesn't need powers to be terrifying, and I assure you she is terrifying. Her mouth opens in a snarl, and Twitch just smiles back.

"Oh, I know what you want. You've always wanted this. Such a good, good friend. Fyera, can't you see the endgame is nigh? The end of everything you've ever loved, ever worked for. It's all her fault. I'm not your enemy. She is." Twitch's eyes fix on me.

"No. Rena's my friend. That's more than you'll ever be, you sad excuse for a Sentient."

"So you want to see a creature of fire burn alive, then? So be it." There's an odd hissing sound, the crackle and pop of a fire but there's none to be seen. Then slowly, I see Twitch glow, not the light of power but the soft and flickering light of a fire starting, at first gentle and calming but soon it grows violent, and it illuminates every vein in his body, and then he turns to black. His whole body is burning, alarms going off as the room screeches with Axel's precautions- WARNING. OVERHEAT. OVERHEAT LOCATED.

"Do something!" yells Thistlepatch, his voice raw, spreading his wings, desperately trying to stop the fire. It burns his wings, and he pulls away roaring in pain. Avery tries to put him in a pink bubble, but every bit of magic she casts burns as if it's a physical being.

Twitch is laughing now laughing hard, and his eyes fall upon me one last time, his whole body blackened and terrible. Nothing I've seen so far was anything like this, and I'm more terrified than anyone else here, screaming and crying and begging for it to stop but nothing happens, he keeps burning, his eyes shrivelling away until all that's left is his teeth, which melt until this terribly burned skeleton and nothing more, no rotting flesh but instead charred remains. The whole place is burned as well, the room almost unlivable as the sprinklers above rain down on us, water gurgling in my dry throat in my eyes that run with tears.

Why? Why? Why?! Why would anyone do this? Why is he dead? Thistlepatch stands over his body, just watching the scorched corpse sizzle out.

Fyera leaves the room, with me sitting there in silence with the dead body.

"You." Thistlepatch snarls. "You did this!"

"No I didn't! I didn't do anything! I don't know what he's talking about!" I'm wailing the words, a desperate plea for forgiveness for nothing. "Please just... just let me go!"

I screech in terror as his claws grind into my wings, blood and saliva everywhere. He's biting, I can't feel anything, I'm numb. So numb... my eyes looking up at the ceiling, empty eyes full of fear...

... and then I'm gone.