Skylar~

I sneak through the woods and hear a gunshot. And lots of screaming. I walk to the source and see a group of six. Two are on th ground one is getting back up however. The other one looks like they just got shot. I notice something in one of their hands. A drum. Possibly The Drum. Glad I came here.

While they are distracted, I pull my hood up and pull on a mask. I creep around to the guy with the drum. I use shadow magic to keep myself hidden. Then I grab the drum and replace it with a bonga drum completly opposite to the drum I have stolen. Then I run.

I hear the shouts behind me. Then feet. Three pairs to be exact. I look back to see a racoon anthro, a girl, and the guy I stole the drum from. 

"Stop! In the name of Catastrophe!" The guy yells.

I stop and turn around. Right as I do I am tackled by the girl. The Racoon anthro takes the drum. 

"Let. Go." I growl gritting my teeth. I am glad I put on the mask. 

"Let's see what's behind that mask." The girl says.

Then right behind her the guy who I presume is a general, lunges and knocks her off of me.

I roll away and draw a daggar from my boot. The general has a gun trained on the girl. I go after the Racoon. Then I am pulled back. Two soldiers or whoever hold me down until I stop fighting them then they let me up. 

"What should we do with her sir?" One asks the general.

"Glad you finally came. Let's let the rookies question her. After Tsuki gets better she'll join the others" 

They are going to question me? I want to join them! Get revenge back at the resistance for what they did. I sigh and let them lead me wherever.  

For a reference as to what Saoirse and Granite look like, their drawing is now up on the art thread! 

Raven

--

A distant gunshot was heard, followed by screaming. I jerked my head towards the sound, and then whipped it back to look at Saoirse. She glanced back up at me before flashing back to the people surrounding her. Besides me, Granite shifted restlessly. Saoirse looked back at the forest and smirked. The gig was up. 

"Well boys, it's been fun, but I suddenly remembered that I left my fire lit and should probably start going," the soldiers lifted their guns up and readied to fire, but Saoirse was quicker. She whipped out a small glass container filled with pink powder and smashed it on the ground, the area around her was suddenly engulfed in a rose colored smoke and a crackling sound could be heard. from the center of the smoke, a wind picked up, and Saoirse stood with her umbrella up over her head. The soldiers around her had turned to stone. As soon as the smoke cleared, and the remaining dust settled to the ground, she closed her umbrella and gave a short whistle. Besides me, Granite suddeny lmoved racing towards her. I sighed. The two could be so dramatic sometimes. 

Sword in hand, I stretched out my wings and I lifted into the air, gliding over to the two. Granite reached down with his arms and picked Saoirse up and onto her saddle. I beckoned him, and he started lumbering towards me. On his back, Saoirse gulped down a few sips of a blue liquid. She wrinkled her nose at the taste. "Blech. I accidentally inhaled some of the dust, my umbrella didn't block everything, and my feet are starting to get numb and heavy. The counter potion should kick in after a few minutes, so I'm out of commission until then unless you want Granite to smash something."

I shook my head. "We should be fine. But that gunshot and scream concerns me. I'm going to fly ahead and see what's going on, you two follow me." Saoirse nodded, and patted Granite on his horn. 

I beat my wings and started to fly, searching for the source of the sound when my ears picked up on more yelling and the sounds of a scuffle. I spotted a cloaked figure running before being tackled by a girl and followed quickly by a racoon anthro. A man in a leader's garments ran out to them. The cloacked figure manages to shake off the two on her, before two soldiers burst into the scene. These were new. Saoirse's stone powder lasted until the antidote was administered. 

The general started talking. "Glad you finally came. Let's let the rookies question her. After Tsuki get better she'll join them."

My eyebrows shot up. What happened to Tsuki? I had just seen her and she seemed perfectly fine! I suddenly rememebred the gunshot that was heard, and I felt a cold sensation seep into my bones. I drifted down into a tree and watched as Tsuki and the other recruits come out. Tsuki was being held in the arms of a recruit, blood soaking an area over her chest. The group turned and headed back to the encampment. I heard a crunching behind me. I turned to see Granite and Saoirse. I swallowed, "Do you have anything that helps people recover from bullet wounds?"

She scracted her head. "Give me half an hour and I can have something that completly heals bullet wounds."

I nodded. "Make it, then approach the encpampment saying that you have something to heal Tsuki. If that doesn't work, then sneak in."

Yess!! Excitement!! Ahhhh!!! Poor Tsuki! But still, that's amazing and I wasn't expecting that!!

Cendaren~

"Sanders. How much harm can a girl with an umbrella do?"

I continued stiffly, against my better wishes: "Just--keep her there. We're heading over." We might as well get all the prisoners together in one fell swoop.

But at that moment, our two hostages decided to separate again. I don't have time for this.

"Fire!" The command rang through the snowy forest, and only silence followed.

I faced my recruits and observed our hostages swiftly retreating into the forest. My senses were intent upon Deeja, Ashzan, and Tsuki: Would they make the shot? One of them had better, or there would be consequences.

My gaze was drawn to Tsuki. In the space of a few seconds, I could see the combat in her eyes as she contemplated what she was about to do.

And then I saw her finger twitch, and the gunshot rang through the trees, knocking snow off the nearest boughs. 

I watched the tall girl turn around. Blood spread upon her jacket, seeping near her heart.

Her comrade saw it too--and screamed.

"Natsu! Well done!" The other recruits rushed to comment upon her aim, her speed, her willingness to follow orders.

The wounded girl staggered backwards, shouting in pain. The raccoon rushed to her side, adding her voice to the rising dissonance.

Tsuki was down on her knees, screaming louder than anyone. I pushed my way towards her and realized with a jolt that she was glowing. A stream of glistening, luminous tears flowed from her eyes, reaching towards the--towards the bullet wound on the human girl.

I blinked in awe as the tears knitted the wound together neatly, soaking away the blood and pain as if nothing had happened. I recalled that this was one of the abilities that had been listed on Tsuki's SOCS file. Possibilities soared into my head. We could do so much with a healer powerful enough to correct near-fatal wounds...

But then Tsuki's light faded, and she let out a weak, startled gasp. Ashzan gasped too, followed by a jolt from Deeja.

I turned to face Tsuki and all the golden possibilities crumbled from my mind, for at that moment I realized, as I saw the blood seeping across her own chest, her powers came at a high price.

-------

Ahh, but I can't add to the plot--I'm out of time! Well, there's Cendaren's reaction. He'll definitely want someone (possibly himself) to assess the fatality of Tsuki's wound before anyone starts chasing Skylar. 

Ashzan~

I return to the cells. The girl glares at me venomously and tries to reach me through the bars of her cell.

"You do realize that glaring doesn't actually inflict damage on people, right?" I trow her own words back into her face, and she stares at me in shock. I feign pitiful disbelief. "Oh, you didn't know that Catastrophe's soldiers could be eloquent?" I drop the act with a snarl. "We're smarter than you think." The girl's eyes flash and her fist darts forward, but I block it with my forearm. Defeat creeps into her eyes, but the fire inside isn't quenched. Caligo walks in.

"Moksovinan. Come with me. Deeja needs help with the thief." I comply, leaving the girl to storm in her own defeat. From another room, I hear Deeja's voice, often interrupted by the thief.

"Caligo is coming back. He should know what to do with you-"

"I want to join you! I want to be an elite!" Caligo and I step in.

"Tough chance. You could be an elite someday, but you've proven yourself to be unfit for the elite uniform. If you really want to be one, you'll have to work up to the elite rank from a regular soldier's position." Caligo states coolly. The thief contemplates.

"... Okay, I can work with that." She replies with a shrug.

~~ 

Saoirse

--

Outside the room, guards muttered and ocassionally peeked inside the room. I narrowed my eyes at them. I was sitting on a chair, my umbrella was open and resting on my shoulder, my hand resting on the handle in case they tried to do anything. Besides me, Tsuki rested peacfully, her chest now healed and rising with steady breaths. After the potion was poured on the wound, it slowlly closed up however, her mutated portions of her body didn't like it as much. It worked fine, but I had to give her a sleeping potion that I store to keep her body calm as the wound healed. 

The clicking of boots on the floor alerted me, and I gripped the umbrella handle tighter. "She's inside, Sir," A guard outside the room said. "We don't know what she's capable of, so becareful."

The door opened, and the General I saw with the others walked in. He stopped infront of me on the other side of Tsuki's bed. 

I smiled. "Hello General, how do you do?"

He leaned forward. "Who are you. Explain you actions and how you claim to know my recruit."

"My, so forward." I shifted my umbrella so it rested on my other shoulder. "I'm Saoirse. I'm friends with a friend of Tsuki, and we happened to be in the area. And is it wrong of me to help a person who could potentially die when I can?" I smirked. "I find that my actions are perfectly justified."

He growled. "You appear the same day and about the same time as two people who carry the drum and a thief who can manipulate shadows. How can I possibly trust you? And if you want to join our side, how do I know you won't try anything?"

My smirk widened. "That's just it, you can't can you? However, I swear on my umbrella that I am not on 'our' side." I gestured at Tsuki. "I'm on hers."

He pressed his lips together. 

"How about I make a deal. I will stay here and aid you in anyway I can. In return, you grant me and my friends saftey, fair treatment, and access to your facilities."

His eyes narrowed even further.

I rolled mine. "Okay. All that and I turn your soldiers that were going to shoot me earlier back into live people and not statues."

His eyebrow twitched up in surprise. "You turned my soldiers into statues? How, explain."

I pulled five vials from a pouch on my belt and fanned them out for him to see. "I'm an alchemist. I study and divine the nature of nature and learn more about the world than anyone before me. In one of these vials is the antidote for the stone powder. The other four contain acids and chemicals capable of explosions. Killing me and taking the vials from me would be suicidal. I can inflict a ton of damage that would be otherwise unfixable with out me. Grant me and my friends safety, treatment as well as any other recruit, and access to the base and you won't regret it."

He held his hand out across the bed. "Deal."

A smile stretched across my face as I took his hand. "I am going to have so much fun here! I hope you're ok with having a gargoyle hanging out with me."

"A what." 

Kimi~

Davina and I are tossed into separate cells, which are the guestrooms of Jokull's basement that have had bars installed in the place of doors. They seem to go on endlessly, and are devoid of any commodities except for a little black pot and a scrappy hay pile to sleep in. Mine doesn't even have a light switch, but at least I can see in the dark. Davina is in the cell to my left, and the thief is across the hall.

I recognize this dungeon, and I know what's to come: One meal a day. Limited access to water. Bitter isolation. The only company is your occasional guards and that terrible black dragon you sometimes hear them freaking out about.

The elf soldier returns to taunt Davina, but her superior calls her out of the hall to go interrogate the thief that attempted to take our drum. We're left alone, in the semi-silence, in ignorance.

All I can hear is my heartbeat and the adrenaline pulsing through my body as blood roars in my ears.

"So. That was. Unexpected," I tell Davina through the wall.

"Which part?" she replies. Her voice is muted and weary.

"The part where the soldier that was trying to kill you healed you! I thought you were--going to die," I utter. The memory of what happened runs through my head like a dog chasing its tail. It won't stop.

In the other cell, I hear the interrogation of the thief begin.

"So did I," Davina replies.

We both sit in silence for a few minutes, listening to the muffled voices of the soldiers in the other cell.

"Kimi. Have you been here before?" Davina asks me suddenly.

I glance at the floor. "Yes. So I used to live in the Decoy Forest with my clan, but they all died, so I left..." I pause, realizing that I don't even miss my family. It's kind of sad--but that's how I was raised. "And then I got captured, and I was brought here. Eventually the Resistance rescued me, but I never really thought I'd be back."

The interrogation ends abruptly, and I see Catastrophe's soldiers head down the hall to another cell.

"Kimi, we have to get out of here," Davina says once they're gone.

I'm about to agree when the thief engages Davina in conversation. It ends with a thudding sound, followed by an angry outburst from Davina.

"What happened?!" I exclaim, wishing I could see in there.

"Oh, I just had a dagger thrown at my head," Davina replies, and I hear something being wrenched from the wall.

"Ahh!" Then I have a thought. "Thank her!" I exclaim, leaping to my feet. "Now we may just have a way out of here." 

Cendaren~

This month's report was going to be very long. And Cendaren needed time to make some very important decisions. Most unfortunately, time was not something he had right now.

Cendaren regarded the girl in the raincoat with narrowed eyes. She had presented a compelling argument, and he'd had no choice but to agree.

"I am going to have so much fun here! I hope you're okay with having a gargoyle hanging out with me."

Cendaren blinked. "A what."

"My gargoyle, Granite. He goes where I go. He keeps me safe."

Cendaren blinked again, glancing at Tsuki's softly sleeping form. "I don't have time for this. I presume it will be okay as long as it doesn't cause trouble or break anything." He regarded the girl coldly. "Oh, and if I get one report about any trouble coming from you, the deal is off. What's your name?"

"Saoirse," she answered sweetly.

"Saoirse, first you need to restore my men to their living states."

Cendaren stepped back. "One of the guards will be your escort. In the meantime, I will sort out your commodities, and we will continue from there. If you need me, I go by General Caligo."

Cendaren then turned and left. 

Raven

--

There was still nothing on Saoirse's situation. I watched her punch a few guards before chraching into the building to get to Tsuki. Then nothing. It had been relatively silent since then. Beneath me at the base of the tree I was laying in, Granite. whimpered, and rest his head on his arms. 

I rolled my eyes, hooking my legs on the branch to look down at him. "Be quiet, Granite. She's fine, and you're acting like a puppy who's depressed because their owner went out for lunch without them." He looked up at me.  I sighed. Suddenly, a whistle was heard, and Granite jumped up adn started charging towards the sound. I snatched my sword and started slying after him, mind running around in a panic. My mind frantically began running through the worst case scenarios; Saoirse had been captured and the soldiers were trying to lure me and Granite out into the open. Or maybe she was in danger and she was trying to call for back up. Or-

I suddenly halted my flight. Granite was waving his tail around and uprooting dirt sods as he hugged a cooing Saoirse. "Who's a good gargoyle? You are Granite! Yes you are! Oh, you were probably so worried, I'm sorry, I'll never leave you again!"

"OhmyKyngdom he is just a puppy," I muttered under my breath, staring at the scene. A little ways back was a soldier, gripping onto his gun, looking uncertainly at the gargoyle. Saoirse and Granite finally finished their hug-fest and once she was settled on his back, she gestured for me to come closer. 

"So," she started, "You would not believe the bargain I just made! We get complete access to the facilities here, food, and proper treatment befitting Moi-us." She coughed slightly. "Us."

I raised my eyebrow at her. "And what do we give in return?"

"I turn everyone back into people and promise not to blow anything up!" She placed her hands over he heart. "I know right! It was such a steal!" The soldier cleared his throat. The three of us turned towards him, and Granite gave a slight growl. 

"If you could please hurry this up so you can fix the others? Night will fall soon and I don't really want to be the one stuck out here."

Saoirse pat Granite's horn. "Okay, ya, we're on it. Let's go boy." The way back was silent, bar the crunch underneath Granites stone feet and the beating of my wings. Eventually we made it to the stone circle of men frozen with their weapons raised. Saoirse procceded to prinkle drops of a blue liquid on the statues, and after a few minutes, the stone began to gain color. Once they were relased, the soldiers fell onto their knees and coughed, probably getting used to breathing again after like an hour or two of not doing so. 

Saoirse turned to the escort soldier. "All done. Now take us back because Granite and I are tired and would like to take a nap."

Tsuki~~

Slowly, slowly, I opened my eyes. The room was darker and empty, except for a few wounded soldiers at the other end of the room, sleeping in beds.

I sat up and looked down at my chest. The bullet wound was almost gone --there was just a tiny scar where it had been.

I quietly crept out of the room and into our bunker. Carefully, I grabbed one of the spare uniforms and changed into it in the restrooms. I put the bloodied uniform in the bin in the restrooms.

I stepped into the hallway once more. I heard the sound of laughter, and two sets of human footsteps. There was a third set of footsteps coming from something very large, like a dragon. 

I glanced down the hallway and saw none other than Saoirse, Raven Shadows and a giant gargoyle.

"Tsuki!! Oh, you're all better! How grand! How do you feel? Does it hurt? Wow, is that a scar I see?" Saoirse bubbles. Raven gives me an apologetic look.

"It's been a long time since I've seen you, Tsuki," Raven says. 

" Yeah, " I agree. I can feel a sort of awkwardness. "I didn't --I don't --I, um--I don't want to be on Catastrophe's side. Honest. I was captured by his troops. Made into one the recruits." 

Raven smiles. "I didn't think that you were." The awkwardness is suddenly gone. But before we can continue , the faint sound of footsteps was heard. We all twisted to see who it was.

Ashzan, Deeja, and Caligo werw walking down the hallway.

"Tsuki! You're alright!" Ashzan gasps .

"Good to see you back on your feet, Natsu." Caligo nods.

" Thank Lunee you aren't dead, " Deeja says. 

~~~ 

Saoirse

--

As the others continued to check on Tsuki, I was suddenly struck by a burning question.

"I have to know!" I exclaim. Besides me, Raven rolls her eyes. Seriously, we have such contrasting personalities it's one of the ancient wonders that we are friends. "Tuski, you healed the bullet wound, right?" She nodded, her face confused by the question. "Right, you healed the wound by transfering it to you. But--BUt! What happend to the bullet itself? Is it stuck in the person's body for ever until someone pulls it out? When you heald the wound, did you also transfer the bullet and it is now in your body?" Raven smacked her face with her hand.

"Is this really a good time to ask these kinds of questions Saoirse?" She muttered to me.

I gasped and spun to face her. "There is no greater time for the pursuit of knowldege through the natural curiosity borne in human minds. When a question arises, I must know the answer to it!"

The group besides us had turned slighty pale, and Tsuki was gripping her new scar.

Raven gave another sigh before stepping forward. "Excuse my friend and her, quite frankly, unexcusable behavior and inablilty to control her mouth." I sucked in a deep breath. Oh how dare-- Raven continued, sticking her hand out. "I am Raven Shadows, a product of the animal hybrid army. It is a," she paused looking for the right word to use, "pleasure to meet you all."

Caligo nodded and stepped forward and shook Raven's extended hand. "I am General Caligo. I have your quarters set up in the recruit barracks. I'm not so sure as to where you're gargoyle will be kept."

I stepped in. "Oh, Granite's a sweetheart, he'll be okay with anything. Got any sturdy rafters he can just perch on? He and I will stay up there."

"Where will you sleep?" the forest elf (I really should learn the names of these people) asked. 

"Phhhbt who needs sleep when there is an entire forest outside to study? I have a couple theories I want to test and experiemtn, like my hypothisis on the Decoy Forest and it's capabilities to create illusions. I think there is a substance in the trees that warps the mind of the people who wander in, making them create their own illusion. The forest doesn't know you or anyone you've previously met, so it itself can't create the illusions it's so famous for; the people who wander in do! I think if I have enough time and quiet, I can divine how exactly the trees do this an--" Raven cuts me off with a nudge. I clear my throat. "Sorry. I got excited."

The Dolor Felis, elf, and Tsuki looked slightly confused at my rant, but Caligo had an intrigued look on his face. 

"Saoirse," he started. "Suppose I gave you the rough layout of a weapon, would you be able to figue out exactly how it worked?"

"Would I? Absolutely. But remeber, I'm still not on your side." I reached out to tug Tsuki close to me so I could hug her arm. "I'm on hers. It was in the fine print of our verbal deal." He looked at me. Ehh, probably not the best time to get on his bad side. "But I can do it."