I kinda ship Leapard and Somebody... don't judge me!

Okay, So Icy and Shipz!!!, I didn't know if you were aware that Somebody and Leopard are both sort of girls. If you want to ship them, I'm not stopping you.

Anyway, Leopard is a girl. She's just a flat out biological girl. She's tan with light blonde hair.

Somebody, however, doesn't exactly have a gender. She has a female or male self-appearance, always having brown hair (cowlick as a boy, ponytail as a girl) with a mint green streak and brown eyes, and is sort of tall. 

She made her own personal appearance by using elements of various people she'd seen. She can manifest as male if she chooses.

So their ship is kind of an odd one. It's not really two girl shipping and it's not really girl-guy shipping.

Eh, oh well.

NEW PART SOON! 

Part 12~

Shade clutched the tracker nervously, sweaty palms threatening to send it crashing down. This tracker would help Keira, Abigail, and Leopard find the Battalion Base, once they finally came.

Shade's mind was a wreck; flashing back and forth between wanting to fly at top speed towards the Base and wanting to fly back to find her other friends.

As if guessing what she was thinking, Somebody sighed. "Look, it'll be kinda hard to find our friends if we try to go back. They're going ot be packing up camp and destroying evidence that they were ever there. We might as well move forward."

Shade understood, but it made the journey no less painful.

"Alright," Somebody said, "I'll pose as a friend of this girl, Icicle Holsen."

"Oh, I know her!" gasped Shade. Somebody yelped as Shade almost released her to be dashed upon the ground fifty feet below.

"Sorry!" Shade said. "But I used to babysit her. I know it was risky babysitting a True Guard member's daughter, but-"

"No, that's genius," Somebody said, "no one would suspect that you were a Forbidden if you were fairly close to a Guard member's child."

"-anyway, just so you know, she goes by Icy and I think the friend you should pose as is Mika. She's a classmate of Icy's, and they don't know each other too well. Mika is kind of quiet. He likes maps. He... hm... he hangs out with a girl named Osana-"

"Okay, okay," Somebody rolled her eyes, "I get it. Got a picture?"

"Do you have a phone?" Shade asked.

Somebody wordlessly produced a smartphone from the pocket of her unitard. Shade, after digging around, managed to find a recent picture of Mika on Facebook.

"Got it," Somebody said. She morphed into a young boy with light brown skin and short, curly brown hair. Shade was relieved for the release in weight.

Somebody stretched and relaxed. Shade barely managed to hold on.

"So then?" Shade asked.

"Then you cut your hair and pose as my caretaker. Everyone's so busy, they won't notice. Drop me off with Icy, then find the girls. Then come back to get me, and we can bust them out."

"Okay," Shade said numbly, "what do I say, 'hey, Icy, Mika here... she really wanted to see you!"

"He," Somebody said, "I'm currently a he, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," Shade said.

They flew in silence before Shade broke it.

"Oh, come on, Somebody, they'll know who I am!" Shade cried out.

"Just change your voice and cut your hair and trust me, they won't."

Shade nodded. They had just reached the base; Shade dove into the trees. Using her claws, she scissored off her long blonde hair until only a pixie cut remained.

"C'mon," Somebody said, rolling up the jean pants on her-his legs, "let's go get our siblings. And friends."

Booksy, Saint, Balea, and Owlgirl sat dejectedly in their respective cells. Booksy was grateful yet guilty that hers was the only one with a window.

True, it would cause problems; bugs came in, rain came in, but it was worth it to have a shard of light.

Booksy was a firm believer in hardback books; she'd been allowed all the classics. Recently, the guards had stopped bringing food to her. They were starving her for information.

It was OK. She had let the others know of her plight by whispering at the walls between cells; they gave her bits and pieces of food, sliding them through tiny cracks.

Booksy stared blankly out the window, watching with sick jealousy as twin birds flew across the horizon. The boarded up belfry that Saint was sequestered in was once a home for them. The belfry sat in an abandoned church across the Base; Saint was being kept there alone because, so far, she had yielded no information.

Booksy cast her eyes down and froze. Waving goodbye to a young boy was Shade. She had cut her hair and was altering her voice, but it was shade.

Shade began to walk away, obviously looking for something.

She's looking for us, Booksy thought, I have to-I-"

Booksy grabbed for her book of poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It was a simple hardback with the word Tennyson emblazoned on the cover.

Hey, at least she'd be able to save someone.

Shade jumped as a book whirred by her head. She had no idea where it came from, just that it was thrown with deadly accuracy.

She picked up the book, which had chipped the concrete below, and saw that it was marked with a feather.

Booksy, Shade thought, turning to the marked page.

The page contained two poems: The Eagle and The Owl. The last two lines of each stanza of The Owl had been painstakingly underlined with dirt. 

When cats run home and light is come,

And dew is cold upon the ground,

And the far-off stream is dumb,

And the whirring sail goes round,

And the whirring sail goes round;

Alone and warming his five wits,

The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry milkmaids click the latch,

And rarely smells the new-mown hay,

And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch

Twice or thrice his roundelay,

Twice or thrice his roundelay;

Alone and warming his five wits,

The white owl in the belfry sits.  

Shade turned slowly to face the abandoned church, sitting like an eternal fog of ethereal marble next to the Base.

The white owl.

Saint.

Shade began rapidly walking towards the belfry.