"Nice of you two to drop in. You're the Newbies, right?"

Gale and I nod.

"Indy and Fyera have taken a shine to you. Indy loves everyone, but Fyera? Well, I'm impressed. She and I have been friends a long time. She ran away from home with me when we were both little." Flare says. She looks a lot like a female Torch, a more lithe version of him, complete with muscle and more orange tinted fur. Her narrow eyes and tall posture make her look almost more intimidating.

"Why?" Gale asks.

"If you're here about what I think you're here for, you'll know in a matter of minutes."

"We might be. What's a Forhaga?" Gale puts the same emphasis on the word as Twitch did.

Flare closes her eyes, like she's too disgusted to go on with the conversation. "Twitch told you."

"He mentioned it." I say.

"Twitch is an idiot, and if he thinks he can call her that, he can jab his puny little mouth in a volcano so we can burn it off. He has no right to call her that. None at all."

"But what is it?" I plead, curiosity now taking over.

"Fyera's grandparents... well, two were more modern Sentients who believed in love before species. The other two were willing to break laws, but had no radical predisposition. What the point is is that two were Felids, two were Canira. On both sides, she was mixed breed. Her parents had suffered their whole lives, bullied and almost forced to suicide. They were considered dangerous, but luckily, half breeds by natural causes rather than the Plague are more stable. They spent their whole lives concealing it, found each other, and raised their one litter, six children, to keep their origins quiet. Out of their six, three were pure Canira, one was pure Felis, one was unstable and killed himself in a fit of energy, and the last one was Fyera. She was Forhaga. Forhagas are... see, instead of getting both powers, she got neither. Her powers are very weak and basic, limited to regrowing projectiles and slightly enhanced battle abilities. She spent her whole life training so it looked like she was like the rest of us.

She told very few of us, but then Twitch heard it, and he's been using it as leverage ever since. They hate each other a lot."

"With good reason!" I object.

"So what's the Mercy Pact?" Gale asks, edging us both away from the conversation.

"Twitch is a jerk. We have a pact between almost everyone, if we see him in the Arena we take him out before fighting each other."

"Why do you all hate him? Besides the obvious." I ask, hoping to get more than the simple, 'he's a jerk' response.

"He's an idiot." Flare responds, "Minx feels sorry for him, but that's really her problem. I can't take him."

"That's all you're going to give us, isn't it?"

"Piece it together yourself. You guys are smart." She says, flicking her tail. "Anyhow, someone wants to see you. He's at the door."

The door slides away and Indy walks in. "Hi Rena, hi Gale! I was looking for you guys. I thought I'd just warn you ahead of time, Torch has picked up surveillance of a whole bunch of renegades just hanging around over near, uh, what's that place? Right, the Sweetbone Station. Anyways, they seem dangerous and at least half of them are so far into the Plague you can see what mutation they have and it's at least a Call 3. In fact, the alarms should be going off right... now."

Alarms blare overhead and I hear high pitched screeching that threatens to permanently deafen me. Looking up with bristling fur, I leave the room, getting back in the elevator with Gale, Flare and Indy right behind.

I fall in line with Katrina and Glaze, who are singing over the alarm for no reason.

"AND I WOULD WAIT A THOUSAND YEARS TO SEE YOU AGAIN..."

"AND I WOULD WALK ON FLAMING COALS TO KISS YOU GOODNIGHT..."

They're both on key, yes, but between the loud alarms and them singing some song I don't recognize, my ears are bleeding.

Not literally.

But we're getting there.

"HAVING A GOOD NIGHT-"

Gale walks away.

"You know you can still hear them over there, right?!" I yell.

"Yes. Yes I do." He yells back.

Auma brushes her tail over us, and I feel the magical tingling spread up my spine again. It feels good, in a way, even if it is a bit weird.

The huge door opens, slowly shuddering over us, and then with a loud groan, it stops instantly, and all seventeen of us pour out into the city, paws on pavement, howls cutting the air.

I howl along, lifting my voice, and then look around for Gale to realize he's gone. Indy, Katrina, and Glaze are running together, singing.

"When you know you've got it in you, everything will be okay, when you find you've got the music, you've got the music in you..."

Somehow the song feels familiar but I can't place it. Instead, tongue out and panting, I ask in a muffled voice, "You guys feeling it?"

"Call Three. We haven't had one in over two months. I'm excited! Scared, but excited!" Glaze wags her tail everywhere, and I notice the little rainbow fluff flakes off her tail when she waves it.

"You're losing some sparkle." I point out.

"Yeah, I do that. I call it my natural glitter. You didn't think that Katrina naturally looked that fabulous, did you?"

"I don't know, pretty fabulous over here." Katrina interjects.

Indy is just smiling, skipping along, not even panting.

"How is he not tired? I don't run this fast when I'm hunging!" I say, amused somewhat, the last word almost unrecognizable, obscured by my tongue.

"Hunging?" asks Glaze.

"Hunting." I correct, "Not hunging."

"Oh. Yeah, we don't question Indy. He just is."

"I think it's the exotic lunchmeat." Indy says, "It's really good for you. You should try some baked armadill-"

"No thank you."

"Your loss." He shrugs, winking at me.

I feel all tingly, like he's rubbed my Verhamera's Horns. It's weird, I've almost never felt like this before. What could it mean? Is something wrong with me?

The tingling sensation is gone as soon as it came, leaving me breathless. Everyone stops.

There's at least twenty of them, and not all of them are Canira. The largest is a dark colored Fauna, the Sentient deer, almost pitch black, with twisted horns. I can't tell if it's a doe or a buck, as both female and male Fauna have horns that they use to distort time. If we're up against one of those... well, I better hope to Verhamera it's not any good at fighting, because if it's any good, we're all probably getting wrecked.

Auma steps forwards.

"Well, if it isn't our lovely Auma." yells a half-Canira, half-Felis. I think of Fyera, who's standing their with her fangs bared, and something in me just jerks.

"Yes, it's me. What are you doing in Lira City? Plague victims are not allowed in quarantined areas."

"So you'd rather have us out there? In the cold, wait, right. It doesn't matter if we die, live in filth while the city stays all shiny and bright, hmm? We're not even Sentients to you and your stuck up Council. We're nothing more than the birds and rabbits you eat, lifeless, meaningless, pointless. Wanna know something about regular, non-Sentient animals? They live to survive." The Fauna advances on her slowly, then gets closer, closer, drawing his twisted horns up to her heart while she stands, unwavering. "Well so do we."

"Battle positions!" Auma yells, backing up and her golden paw rings intensely glowing. The air around Rain is freezing. Axel's eyes flicker with mad green light, and her paws twitch as if she's looking beyond... because she probably is, looking into the code, the pulsing life-blood of the city.

The Fauna extends his wings, his horns ramming Auma, who dodges, forcing his horns into the pavement. Auma slams down on his head with a sickening thud, a crack and then, blood oozing from a just-opened wound, the Fauna gets up again.

It moans terribly, while a tiny Lapis with wings and horns engages with Katrina. Katrina sends it upwards, her wings fanned out around her like those of a fallen angel.

None of them seem to be able to use true magic, but bulk and strange combinations of anatomy make up for that.

I'm fighting a half-Canis, half-Lapid, whose deep blue eyes are like windows into my own soul. I can't kill her, I can't kill her, I can't kill her. She's cutting away, out of fear more than hatred.

"You can't make me go back!" She yells, "You can't! I'll fight you!"

She lunges for my throat, hoping to make me like her, when suddenly a huge pile of armadillos falls on her head, nearly missing me. She shrieks as the tiny animals steamroll her, but they don't keep her down long.

"Sorry!" Indigo yells, "It was the first thing I could think of!" The Lapis dodges his next present, which is a huge, half-ton elephant.

With a flick of his ears, they're gone, who knows where to. Indigo runs towards me, panting, and then his ears flutter in the wind for a bit and I see the Lapid-Canis suspended in midair, like some sort of carnival prize. It's stuck there, twitching and writhing, and then Indigo warps the ground, the pavement turning into an stoney prison.

Indigo pants, looking around for another combatant, but everyone else is going one-on-one with someone else. "I'm gonna go help Auma. Try not to die!" He says, waving and then walking away to who knows where.

"Bye." I say, smiling a bit, and then I go off to find Gale, darting and running among the others. Gale's there, and I help him out, fighting what looks to be something between a shark and a horse. It's maw is open, and it snaps at him while he holds it back with shadow claws. The markings on his face are larger somehow, and they emanate power and fear. I join in, going for the tail, hoping to throw it's balance off, but the tail moves like it has a mind of it's own. I manage to start it bleeding, then score a hit in the open wound, and it makes a guttural hissing noise.

The shark horse gallops at Glae, biting at his feet, and then it lands a hit on his paw. He yelps, leering at his paw as if it's going to turn against him, and I slam down it's tail, making it rear up and then fall, and I seize upon it, careful not to bite it for fear of the Plague.

Another shriek sounds from above, Katrina's wings have two bloody holes and the Fauna stands over her, and then begins falling, faster and faster.

Rain darts forward from her battle, making a giant spiral of ice that catches Katrina mid-fall. She lands, silent and bloody across the ice. Rain stabs the Fauna with six shards of ice, but it lands only to be swiftly carried away by another. She looks down at Katrina, and slowly carries her down.

"Come on guys, let's go home." Auma announces. "Axel, Rain, can you two make sure they left? If anything happens, call us."

"On it." They say together.

I watch, devastated as Katrina slumps, unresponsive. "KATRINA!" cries Glaze, running up to her friend. "Katrina, please..."

Suddenly, her eyes widen with pure terror.

I run to where she is, and then I see the gaping hole that must have been left by horns. Her neck has a punctured hole in it, barely missing her spine, peppered by other small dots lining her back and neck. The worst by far is spitting blood- and it seems to have cut right into her brain.