Wolf Epic Part 1

In a humanless world dominated by wolves, conflict erupts between the nations. Caught in the center of the war are a few Native wolves. Can they stop the Spreading ruthlessness?

            The frozen landscape bit viciously at jasmine’s paws as she made a desperate attempt to escape from the boundary of the Eucadian republic.  Jasmine, a native Veridian wolf puppy, was assigned the task of retrieving important information from the Veridian contact. At 8 years old it was an important task. Jasmine was discovered by an SS patrol after she tripped a motion sensor. It was dark and snowing wildly, ice cold wind bit ferociously at her wounds as she crossed the fifth mile line. It was only a few more before she would reach the outskirts of Veridia but the SS homicide squad was closing in on her. Tears streaming from her eyes, she realized that they were too fast for her. From her peripherals she could see one of them, a larger black wolf, closing in on her. She cut a sharp left only to meet another one face to face.

            Jasmine was staring in the bright yellow eyes of a Eucadian wolf about three times her size. He smiled sadistically at her striking fear into her heart. Petrified, she tried another desperate escape attempt that failed. She felt the razor sharp claws of the wolf tear through her flesh and at an instance she was on the ground. There she laid in a shallow pool of blood before they clamped a heavy steel collar around her neck and pulled her back to a questioning facility in Eucadia. As she was pulled through the gate she was the center of attention. A few hundred Eucadian wolves looked at her strangely; the Eucadian population heard of Veridian wolves but they have never actually seen one before. They expected a more unruly, feral type but all they saw was a puppy a bit larger than any other Eucadian puppy her age.

            She received strange, surprised looks from the crowds. They were astonished by the way she looked and carried herself. The Eucadian presses made native wolves appear monstrous and unruly but jasmine was the opposite. She walked like they did and she looked like them. Jasmine was nervous and scared about what would happen to her and how she would get home. The crowd diminished as they reached the station where several SS officials were waiting. They were intimidating to her. Their size, their coloration, everything about them sent chills down her spine. After she was seen by a nurse, she was sat in front of a female SS official. She was quite small compared to all the others and she was the only female. She spoke softly and was very kind to her.

            “So… what’s your name?” she said with a tiny smile. Jasmine was unsure about speaking as she was only eight years old. She looked down and away from the SS lady. “Its okay.” she said quietly as she leaned forward to gently scratch jasmine’s ears. Out of fear she sharply flinched away. “Don’t be afraid I’m not going to hurt you.” She tried to relieve jasmine’s insecurity. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she repeated as she reached for her collar. Jasmine once again flinched. “My name is Terry,” She explained sitting back in her chair. “I’m here to help you.” Jasmine remained silent. “Well you’re awfully young,” Terry observed “how old are you?” Jasmine once again remained silent. “I know you’re scared,” terry took another attempt at getting her to speak, “But you’ve got to help me help you.” She said reassuringly. Jasmine grabbed her tail and looked away. Terry smiled “you hungry?” it was midnight and she hadn’t eaten since that morning. Inside she knew that her silence wouldn’t feed her so she nodded almost unnoticeably. “Okay let’s get you something to eat, k?” terry got out of her chair and left the room. At that point jasmine’s instinct to escape set in. she searched the room for any means to escape but found only two, a small window and the door.

            The window was bolted shut so there was no way she could go out that way and if she took the door she was almost certain that the SS would tear her throat out. She figured I would be safer if she would just stay there. I while later, terry returned with some venison. She set the plate in front of jasmine and watched her attentively. Jasmine looked at the food, and then into terry’s eyes. Even though she was extremely hungry, she wasn’t comfortable eating, or doing anything, in front of terry. Terry reached over the table towards jasmine’s injured paw. “What happened here?” jasmine quickly pulled her paws back to her side to avoid this move. “You aren’t going to make this easy on me are you?” terry smiled and laughed. At that instant the door swung open and there stood a large wolf. “Terry are you done yet?” he said in a loud voice. “No, sir.” She said quietly and somewhat ashamed. “Well hurry up and finish we ain’t got all night!” with that the large wolf turned and left.

            Terry, more quiet and sensitive, looked back at jasmine. Her eyes watered slightly and with a sincere voice she begged. “Listen, I know you’re scared,” she continued “but this is more serious than you think.” She looked back at the door and returned her gaze to jasmine. “They will kill you!” She cried. Tears poured from her eyes at that moment. Jasmine was confused and very passionate. She wondered to herself why terry was crying for her but she also felt sorrow for her. Obviously terry was afraid of the wolf that had came in the room earlier and that if she didn’t get jasmine to speak something bad would happen to her as well. Jasmine looked up at terry with innocent eyes and squeezed out a small quiet word. “Why?” jasmine said quietly. Surprised, terry quickly looked up at her. “Why are you crying?” jasmine continued in a quiet, nearly silent voice. Terry, trying to pull herself together sat up and explained. “I don’t want them to hurt you that’s why…” terry said sniffling.

            Jasmine sat up and leaned closer towards terry who was in a state of shock. “What will they do to you?” jasmine asked. “n-n-n-nothing” terry uttered looking away. Then terry looked back into jasmine’s eyes. “You’re so little…” she whispered “how old are you?” Jasmine sat quietly for a second and then quietly replied, “Eight.” Terry was surprised “Eight?” Jasmine nodded. For a second terry looked away, she took a deep breath and looked back at her. “What’s an eight year old puppy doing spying on such a dangerous organization?” she asked, terry was getting more comfortable now and began to return to her normal personality. Jasmine ignored the question. She had several thoughts running through her head; thoughts of her home, her mother, and how there was a chance she might never see them again. Quietly jasmine looked gravely in terry’s eyes “I want to go home.” Terry was taken by surprise. She sat silently for a while before speaking again. “I-I’m sorry sweetheart but it doesn’t work that way…” she said looking away. “I mean, with all this important information you know…” “I won’t tell anybody, I promise!” jasmine cried interrupting her in a desperate attempt at persuasion, tears poured from jasmine’s eyes as she tried to utter more but she was too choked up with tears to speak. “I’m sorry…” terry said as she got up and left.

            Jasmine knew that she had to escape or die. She got up from the chair and ran to the window. She examined it closely and figured she had enough force to break it. She closed her eyes tightly and threw back her head. In a reverse motion she flung her head forward, shattering the glass with her muzzle. Jasmine squeezed through the hole she made and successfully escaped into the alley outside. It was cold and still snowing, her paws began to ache from all the running and she was still hungry. But she knew that she had to escape and there was no turning back now. She strolled along the metal fence that enclosed the base from the forest in order to find an opening. To her luck she discovered a part of the fence which had no razor wiring and without though; she took this way to successfully escape Eucadia. All that she needed to do was to head home without being caught.

            Terry sat in the break room stirring her coffee nervously. She hated doing this to the little puppy. After all she was only eight years old! She felt an extreme sense of sadness and she got up to return to the room. Outside she stood, thinking of an explanation and more questions for her. When she opened the door she nearly fainted. There, jasmine’s chair was knocked over and the window was shattered. “Oh god…” she thought to herself she was dizzy now and could hardly stand; so many thoughts were crowding her mind that she couldn’t think straight. She felt as if life was coming at her like a ton of bricks. She felt betrayed at the same time scared. “Oh god where are you!!” she thought to herself as she rushed outside to the other side of the smashed window. All that was out there was a little blood from jasmine’s muzzle and a few paw prints that disappeared a while after they started. Terry fell to her hind knees and thought to herself. “I’m so dead…” 

            The cold wind rushed through jasmine’s fur. She never felt this accomplished in her life before. “What till Angel hears about this!” she said to herself as she reached the dense part of the forest. It was more treacherous here but jasmine, remembering her training, figured it was the safest escape. The thicket slapped and tore at her coat but she didn’t care, she was finally going home and getting fed. Later, after the 10^th mile line, she was in the safe area. The SS never patrolled out that far for fear of the Lions that were scattered throughout the forest region. Jasmine knew the lions and the natives were allies so she had nothing to worry about. She continued on south towards the Veridian forest where here native tribe lived. It was so close now, as she could recognize the surroundings. She continued on until she reached a large wooden wall type structure, the Veridian Forest gate. She went close to the gate and sat. “Alex, Hey Alex!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. From the top of the wall a small puppy a little older she looked down from his post. “Hey! Jazz!” he shouted. “Bout time your a*s showed up, where you been!” “I’ll tell you later just let me in!” she screamed back. The door of the gate opened slowly to reveal the beautiful landscape of Veridia. “We missed ya…” Alex shouted from a distance.

            Jasmine crept silently inside the small cabin where she and her family lived. She peered into the room where her pregnant mother and her six pups quietly slept. She smiled to herself as she turned and hurried to the kitchen where she made herself something to eat. She thought about her whole experience that night and how she would tell her friends about it. Although she refused to admit it, she was petrified throughout the whole time. But she couldn’t let her friends know that! After she cleaned herself she crawled into her bed which was the same way she left it. It felt good to be warm after all of that running in the blizzard. But she couldn’t help but wonder what was going on back at the Eucadian HQ. She thought about terry, the female SS officer that had attempted many times to comfort her. All of this ran through her mind for a few hours but then she figured everything was going to be alright. After all, what could ruin such a fantastic night?

            Back at the HQ terry was experiencing total hell. Her superior officers took turns chewing her out and now there was talk about her being fired. To her, all hell broke loose on her life. Officer after officer, investigators, questioners, surveillance technicians, she had so many people to answer to. And for good reason, jasmine was the only native wolf that the Eucadian government had ever captured alive. And she escaped somehow under the watch of terry. Everyone was at her throat, it seemed like she’d never be ably to leave. A few hours after the incident, she was allowed to leave. Slowly, Terry walked to her house in the central part of the city. All she needed was to be get away from all of the mass confusion and be with her girlfriend, Flannery. She stood on her doorstep for a while to get her explanation together. She was concerned about worrying Flannery her girlfriend and that was what she tried to avoid.

            She walked in quietly to avoid contact but it was futile. Flannery, a dark red colored Wolf-German Shepherd mix stood waiting for her at the door. She was always excited by the sight of Terry. “Hi terry how was your day?” she cried in excitement. Terry tried her best to watch what she said to her because Flannery, even now, was VERY sensitive. “Fine,” she said reassuringly “How was yours?” Flannery thought for a moment and then replied “It was okay, this dog there was hitting on me though it was kind of weird…” she continued on and on. Terry said nothing. She was nervous and scared about her career. What if the board decided to fire her? What would she do? All this ran through her head while Flannery went on about her day in the city. “Anyway so I tell this guy that I’m a lesbian but he keeps trying!” Flannery continued. Terry decided to tell her, but she had to find the right moment, the right opportunity to tell her. But she couldn’t wait. In the middle of Flannery’s sentence, terry cut her off. “This is important.” She said and explained everything to her. After she was done terry looked away in shame. She wanted to cry but she couldn’t, then she felt Flannery’s soft paws on her back. “Hey don’t cry, its okay everyone makes mistakes.” She said reassuringly. But terry wasn’t feeling better. “Flannery, you don’t understand!” she said. Tears were flooding her eyes as she tried to defend her position. Flannery remained content. She gently embraced Terry’s muzzle in her paws while looking into her eyes. “Really, its okay.” She said smiling. Flannery ran her paws gently through terry’s fur. She was in such sense of peace at Flannery’s embrace that she forgot about the trouble she was in. “Come on I betcha I can make you fell better.” Flannery said running upstairs. Terry followed.

            The brightness of the sun woke jasmine up. It was about ten o’clock and her mother hadn’t gotten up yet.  The sound of her brothers and sisters playing outside encouraged her to wake up. She stumbled out of bed into the bathroom to fix her fur and brush her teeth. Afterwards she went outside to play. Quietly, she approached from behind her best friend Angel, a small puppy jasmine’s age that was covered everywhere with white fur, but she heard her coming and spun around lightning quick. “AHA! I…,” she screamed but realized who she was. “Oh my god Jazz is that you?!” she cried and tightly hugged her. “Ty, Ty!” She cried. “Its Jasmine she’s alive!” out of the bushes came a medium sized grey colored wolf puppy. He spoke with a voice too deep for his age. “Jasmine! Oh my god you’re not dead!” he shouted. “I thought that was a suicide mission for sure!” “I know me too.” Angel said. She worried greatly about Jasmine. “When you didn’t come back on time we thought, well Ty thought, that the SS got you.” She spoke quietly. “We thought they killed you.” Ty said walking towards another bush. “Well they kind of did, but I escaped!” jasmine whispered to Angel. “For real?” angel said. She tried with no success to keep quiet “You got to tell us about it!” “Sure, hey where are the others?” Jasmine said looking around. “They’re hiding.” Ty said looking into several areas. “Guys come out! Look whose here!” Ty howled.

            From the bushes several of jasmine’s friends appeared. Tawny, small for her size with tawny fur appeared first.  She spoke timidly and rarely fought. Terrace, a black furred male came out next. He was one of the few males there and fell in love with jasmine the first time he saw her. Savanna, a small cow-colored puppy spoke with a strong British accent. She and her mother migrated from England when war broke out between England and Siberia. Orianna was the oldest of them. She has six sisters that are each a bit younger then she. Her six sisters all were out on reconnaissance missions to retrieve information. Abigail, at seventeen, was the second oldest. Abigail being the most violent and considered the best fighter attracts both males and females. They were all interested in hearing about jasmine’s micro-adventure. Jasmine went on and on telling her story. Everyone listened attentively as she went over every tiny detail. When she was finished everyone was astounded. “If I were you, I wouldn’t have let them collar me…” Abigail laughed, “Somebody would have bled.” “Yeah right, she would’ve been the one bleeding.” Terrace whispered to Ty. “Do you want me to make you bleed little boy?” She smirked. “Did you tell your mom yet?” savanna inquired almost silently.  “No I’ll wait till she wakes up.” Jasmine responded immediately. Tawny remained silent. “Well there she goes.” Orianna said walking away. Jasmine looked back and saw her mother coming her way.

            Anne Howell, Jasmine’s mother, is the youngest mother in Veridia. At twenty-seven, she already conceived a liter of six puppies and six more on the way. She is very kind and never yells or screams. She is very laid back but also is very protective and caring. Jasmine’s father, Alex, was killed during a raid. Her mother always tries her best to keep her daughter from danger but since Veridia’s army is mainly consisted of puppies younger than eighteen she doesn’t do very well at that. “When did you get back?” She asked. She appeared tired and lazy. “Last night,” she started to explain but her mother really didn’t care. “It’s alright at least your back; I’m going to go kill some breakfast.” She said turning around and going back the way she came. “She doesn’t appear like she cares,” Angel whispered, “She probably doesn’t.” “Yeah well I’m hungry.” Ty said following Jasmine’s mother.

            Flannery woke up beside an empty side of the bed. She and Terry had a long night and she was still tired from it. Slowly and lazily, Flannery slid out of bed and headed downstairs to the kitchen. There, Terry was fixing a deer she caught for breakfast. “Whatcha making?” Flannery asked resting her head behind terry’s shoulder. “Deer, you want some?” Terry asked rubbing her muzzle against Flannery’s. “Sure, so what do you want to do today? You want to hang out?” Flannery requested. “Yeah I’d love to but I have to go back to work and take more chew outs, sweetie.” Terry replied quietly. “Hey I have an idea, why don’t you just ditch that stupid job of yours and we should go and do some fun stuff! Geez have some fun for a change!” Flannery replied loudly. “That sounds fun, but that’s not what’s going to pay these bills, Flannery.” She rolled her eyes and went over to her. “You know I love you right?” Flannery asked quietly in terry’s ear. “I know,” Terry answered, “and I love you too but I have to get these bills paid, hon.” Flannery returned to her chair, “fine it’s your life.” She said with a half smile.   

            Later that night Flannery stood at the balcony of Terry’s house thinking about what was going on. Honestly, she didn’t care for anything. All she wanted was her girlfriend back. “Ever since Terry took up that job,” Flannery said to herself, “She never has anytime for me.” She peaked over at Terry who was sleeping silently in her bed. “She’s always so angry.” Flannery continued. She was personally struck by Terry’s periodical absences, late nights at the office, and Terry’s violent reactions caused by stress; she was destined to stop it. Flannery loved Terry with all her heart, but she knew that something, or someone, was standing in between her and her girlfriend and Flannery would stop at nothing to rid Terry of the stress brought on by her superior officers. Flannery began to feel dizzied by anger with the whole situation. Perhaps she was just tired so she attempted to lye down but her dizziness was taking over. Pretty soon she was totally unconscious, but she was still up. She turned around and headed downstairs towards the door, controlled by an unknown force deep down inside of her, she walked outside the door headed up the street where the officer’s quarters were located.

            The next morning Flannery woke up on the couch. It was late and Terry had already left for work. She pulled away from the couch and headed to the bathroom to wash up. She turned on the lights and looked in the mirror. She was horrified at what she was staring at. There was a thick presence of blood around her mouth and, when she looked down, blood on her paws. She panicked, where did this come from? Whose is it? All these questions tortured her mind throughout the morning. She wanted to tell terry but she was afraid. Flannery did her best to wash the blood off but it was stained in her fur.  She sat in the bathtub scrubbing and scrubbing but it wouldn’t come off completely. In the midst of her panic the phone rang. A large chill ran through her spine and she froze where she was. The phone continued to ring. A while after she gathered up the strength to move, she got out of the tub and trotted slowly to the telephone. “H-h-h-hello..?” She answered. She could hardly breathe and her heart was racing. “Hello? Flanny is that you? Okay well you’re not going to believe this. Somebody broke into my sergeant’s house last night, right, and then they killed him, his wife, and his little girl.” Flannery froze. “They think it’s me! Can you believe it!?” The phone slid from her paws onto the floor. “Hello? Flannery you there? Hello? Helllloooo…” the phone continued to speak. Flannery recalled last night what she did. She remembered her thoughts and feelings however, there was a time where she sort of blacked out. She remembered very little from that time on but she knew deep down inside that Terry wasn’t the one who killed the officer and his family. It was her.  

            Jasmine, Ty, and Angel walked through the peaceful village of Veridia in search of Alex. “I saw him the other night at the gate” jasmine suggested peeking down an alleyway. “Well he gets around,” Ty smiled “Probably off chasing some girl.” Angel said nothing. “You okay?” Jasmine asked “You seem so quiet.” Angel fell in love with Alex the first time she saw him but she didn’t want anyone to know about her affection for him because he was the type who wasn’t very popular with females. Ty smiled at her “Its cause we’re talking about Alex isn’t that right, Angel?” Her face turned red. Ty looked over at Jasmine “She wants him to make her puppies.” “Shut up, Ty.” Angel said looking away. “Why aren’t you denying it?” Ty came back sharply. “Give her a break Ty; you liked Abigail till she beat you up.” Jasmine replied quietly. “That was different.” He said almost silently. They reached the outskirts of the town where Alex and his older brother lived. They headed around to where his house was and waited; pretty soon Alex, a few years older than Jasmine appeared at the door. He was a bit taller than the rest with dark grey, smoke colored fur. Angel’s face turned red again. Although Alex was older, he still acted childish. “Come on Alex we’re going to go find some pretty girls!” Ty shouted. “Okay!” He cried and ran out the house. He didn’t realize that angel was there. When he saw her he froze completely. They were staring at each other’s eyes. “H-h-h-hi Alex…” Angel said nervously. “Hey Angel, uh, what’s up?” Alex replied, nervous as well. Angel smiled slightly. She was excited, being in front of Alex, she could hardly stand it.  Alex too was aroused by her.  The sat staring at each other for a while before the silence was broken. “Awww kiss already!” Ty said walking away. “So Alex you want to come with us?” Jasmine took a shot at grabbing his attention “We’re going exploring.” “Angels coming.” Ty teased. “Uh sure why not? Sounds fun.”

            A few miles outside the gate, Angel, Jasmine, Ty, and Alex traveled west towards the great lakes where they would continue on past into Caniridia, territory of the foxes. “Savanna and Terrace are coming.” Alex said trying to keep up, “Why do you guys walk so fast?” “You walk too slowly.” Angel smiled at him. “The lake’s a bit farther up north.” Jasmine said walking ahead, “We’ll be there in no time.”  “I hope so.” Alex whined quietly. They continued until they reached a body of water at spanned as far as the eye could see. “How far do you suppose that is?” Ty asked mesmerized by the view. “It isn’t far; when I was smaller my father would take me and my brother fishing here.” Alex reminisced. “That sounds nice.” Angel smiled looking towards the shore. “Oh it was, especially the sunset man it was beautiful!” He told her. “Kind of like you.” He said quietly to her. Angel looked at him and smiled. “You really think so?” she asked getting closer to him. He ran his paws down her hair. “Yeah, I do.” He responded. He closed in for a kiss from her but it was sharply countered by Ty. “Hey lovers, lets go! We’re about to go!” Ty shouted from far off. Jasmine stood by him smiling. Soon, after they ate, they headed along the shore towards Caniridia.

            Flannery sat motionlessly on the couch. The blood still stained around her mouth and on her paws. What had happened to her? She still didn’t understand what she did or why she did it. She was terrified. What would she tell Terry? Flannery felt sick. Too many things happened to her it was like life was crashing down on her. She climb off the couch and slowly padded towards the bathroom. She sat in front of the mirror staring at herself. Not long after, she began to cry. She was too sensitive to handle all this. “Stop that crying!” a voice screamed at her. Flannery looked up at the mirror to see herself, this time a darker red, rogue reflection of herself. The image in the mirror began to laugh at her. “Wh-who are you?” Flannery question herself.  “You stupid girl,” her reflection snarled at her “I’m the more assertive and aggressive side of you. You know, the side your always so afraid to show?” Flannery backed up against the wall. “It’s about time you grew up Flannery, look at you, you’re so pathetic. To Terry, it’s like babysitting a puppy.” Her reflection continued “You want her but you’re allowing all these things to come up and take her away from you. You love her right?” Flannery nodded slightly. “Then prove it!” Her reflection was screaming at her. Flannery gathered up enough strength to come back at her. “I love her. But not like that,” She cried softly “I’d never kill anyone for her.” The aggressive her smiled spitefully, “Well get used to it.” Flannery silently tried to resist. “No.” She said asserted quietly. “What did you say?!” The aggressive her raised her voice. “I said NO!!” Flannery shoved her head into the mirror, shattering it. It was all over, for now. Flannery was scared out of her mind. Everything she had hallucinated seemed so real to her; could that reflection really be the aggressive her?  Flannery immediately knew that her aggressive personality took over her body and killed the sergeant and his family. Flannery was afraid. What If it came back? What if it drove here to kill some more? All of a sudden she felt the same dizzy sensation she felt the night before. “Please no!” She cried but it was taking her over. Her aggressive personality was taking over. It felt as if her brain was being torn apart. Flannery tried her best to fight it but it was useless. She black out. Flannery’s aggressive personality had complete control know. Flannery’s fur had taken on a darker red color, her eyes turned from a beautiful shade of silver to a dark, bloody red. The hair on her neck pointed outward. Overall she looked and acted more aggressive. Flannery’s alternate personality walked outside the house and headed for its next victim. Towards the station.

            As the sun sank below the horizon, Jasmine’s group continued onward towards Caniridia. “How much longer?” Alex whined. “A few more miles,” She replied. “We’ll be there soon Alex relax.” Angel walked alongside him. “The sunset sure is beautiful.” Angel said quietly. “I know, isn’t it?” Jasmine smiled. “I’ve never seen it so clearly before.” Ty remained silent. “Hey Ty why are you so quiet?” Angel questioned curiously. “It just doesn’t feel right out here.” He replied looking around. “What do you mean?” Jasmine queried looking at Ty. “I don’t know I feel exposed.” He replied. Terrace followed behind the group with Savanna the English puppy. Orianna, Tawny, Abigail, Arianna, Katianna, and a few of Orianna’s sisters followed Jasmine and the others soon after they left Veridia. The eleven of them continued on towards Caniridia across the lake. Arianna, Orianna’s littlest sister, followed latter off in the rear of the group. Little did she know the dangers that waited for them. A few miles later they all stopped to rest. As usual, Arianna left by herself to find water. A few yards from the resting place, she found a small stream where she took a long drink. Out of the corner of her eyes she spotted a figure closing in on her. She quickly looked up and before she knew it she was staring in the eyes of a large adult male lion. Without hesitation, she drew out her claws but it was too late. Before they were even halfway out, her throat had already been ripped out of her neck and the stream had been polluted with her blood.

            Back at the camp no one had realized Arianna’s absence so they continued o into the unfamiliar territory. They were in a much denser forest than they were used. It was almost impossible to traverse. “How can anyone live in this dump?” Abigail whined licking her wounds acquired from the many thistles and bushes. “No one lives here,” Jasmine replied “The foxes use it to keep the lions out of their territory.” “Speaking of that, wasn’t there some sort of territorial struggle between the foxes and lions a few months ago?” Savanna asked shyly. “Yep, and it’s still going on just not as much as it used to.” Ty replied. “So what if some lion comes out and, you know, kills one of us?” Savanna asked not realizing that her worst fear has happened already. “Lions are our friends, savanna.” Angel quickly tried to calm her down, “They won’t hurt us.” Savanna and Ty still felt unsure about the unfamiliar forest they were traveling in. From a distance, the small group was being watched by two lions; a male and a female. Their task was to keep watch for any foxes that might be trying to scout out the lion’s territory. “Can we kill them?” The female asked excitedly. She had never got to do anything that exciting before. “No,” the male responded in a monotone voice. “Why not?!” She cried. “Shut up will ya!” the male quietly enforced in the females face. “Sorry,” she said looking away “Hey wait those are wolves!” The male looked sternly at the female. “You don’t think I know that?” He spoke strictly to her “That’s why we can’t kill them.” The female looked back at them. “What do you suppose they’re doing all the way out here?”  The male, once again, gave her a stern look. “What?!” the lioness sharply returned, “Why do you keep looking at me like that?!” “Because you’re the stupidest animal I’ve ever worked with.” He replied gravely. The lioness was personally hurt by that. “Sorry.” She said quietly and laid down. “We need to follow them,” The male lion supposed. The two continued to watch their every move, even when they finally reached the end of the dense forest into Caniridia. “Keep your head up girl,” the male lion requested to the female. “We’re in fox territory now.”

            Flannery’s Rogue personality continued on to the HQ. With the quiet, sensitive part of her out of the way for now, the aggressive her could do whatever it pleased. She headed up to the HQ where the investigation of the sergeant’s death continued with Terry as the prime suspect. Flannery walked unnoticed up to the top office where the supervising officer’s office was. The supervisor sat at his desk, unaware of Flannery’s presence, he continued to work. Flannery’s aggressive side walked up to the desk and sat there silently for a while. When the supervisor looked up minutes later he was surprised. “Oh hello sorry it has been busy all day,” He apologized straightening out his desk, “Trying to catch the game early.” He laughed. Flannery’s aggressive side maintained a monotone look. “Uh… how may I help you?” He broke the silence. “Well,” Flannery’s aggressive side spoke quietly but spitefully. “You can do something for me.” She continued. “Sure, hehehe, what do you need me to do?” the supervisor smiled. Flannery’s claws flipped out and with that she simply replied “die.” Swiftly, Flannery’s dark side tore her claws through the supervisor’s neck. Four small streams of blood splattered across the window and a picture of his family on his desk. Suddenly Flannery could feel her sanity returning. Her aggression subsided and she was her regular self again. Once she regained consciousness she studied the scene. Quickly she looked down at her paws which had acquired another warm, fresh coat of blood. Flannery’s heart skipped. She backed away slowly “No…” she repeated quietly to herself. “This can’t be happening.” She attempted to convince herself that this whole thing was just a scary dream. Hurried by fear, Flannery ran down stair outside of the HQ where she could see from a distance the reaction. She was dizzy. What was this thing taking her over? Why was it happening to her? Flannery walked quickly to Terry’s house. Flannery opened the door slowly. The house was empty. Terry hadn’t shown up yet and Flannery knew why. She returned to the shattered mirror in an attempt to catch a glimpse of her alternate personality. With no luck she attempted to wash the blood off her paws. Flannery was traumatized by what she saw, by what she knew she had done. She didn’t know what to do. What if her alternate personality took over again and killed another? What if her actions got Terry into more trouble than necessary? She needed to get away from it, from all of the scary thoughts. She strolled into the pantry to find something to eat. On the floor of pantry were several bottles of hard liquor that she and Terry used to drink together during the weekends. She thought “Why not?” and popped open one of them and started to swallow it down. Pretty soon she forgot all of her trouble and was in a different mind set called “Wasted”.

            The telephone began to ring a few minutes later and Flannery began to laugh hysterically. She picked up the phone. “Hey Flannery I…” Terry was cut off by Flannery’s drunkenness. “Hey T-t-terry what’s up? You know what? When you get home…” She began to laugh, and then stopped, “I’m going to screw you sooo hard…” She started to chaotically laugh again “I’m going to make you cry!” Terry was silent. “Have you been drinking?” she asked curiously. “No silly!” Flannery began to laugh again. “Well, uh, I’m going to be home really late okay?” Terry added. “Sure thing cutie!” Flannery howled and then tried to hang up the phone with no success. She sat on the couch; emotions mixed with alcohol had her thinking of several crazy and stupid things to do. Out of the blue, the door bell rang. A feeling of tremendous excitement overcame her. She jumped up and stumble to the door. Anne, Terry and Flannery’s neighbor was at the door. She was a bit younger than Flannery and had orange-yellowish fur. “Hey Flann I made some elk, I had a little too much so I cut some meat off for…” Flannery Grabbed Anne’s ears and pulled her so close that their noses were touching. “I love you sooo much.” Flannery mumbled. Without warning, Flannery locked her muzzle with Anne’s. They stood there kissing for several minutes before Flannery pulled away. “Thanks for the elk!” Flannery laughed and slammed the door. Anne was so surprised she didn’t know how to react. Instead she silently returned to her house. Flannery Laughed frantically to herself at nothing for a few minutes until the aftermath began to set in. An enormous headache over took her and sent her falling to the floor. She was extremely dizzy and she threw up several times. She crawled upstairs into the bath where she cleaned up. And then, she crawled into bed where she was taken over by sleep.

            A few miles in the border the group continued on with the two lions following farther behind. “Where are the foxes?” Angel looked around trying to catch sight of one, “They’re usually all over.” Jasmine quietly replied. “With the whole territory war going on they can’t afford to be spread out like they were.” They continued on towards the capital city of Stillwater. Meanwhile the female lion was feeling uneasy. “We’re not supposed to be here are we?” she quietly asked the male lion. He didn’t reply. “If they see us they’ll kill us wont they?” she continued. “I think we can take on a few weak foxes.” The male lion replied viciously. “But they use four point arrows!” She sharply came back, “we can’t take those!” The male lion swung around and grabbed the lioness’ muzzle, violently turning it to face his. “Listen, if you’re scared you can go back and I’ll watch them myself!” He roared. “I’m not scared!” She replied tearing free of the male lion’s grasp, “I just… don’t want to die.” “Let me worry about that okay?” The male lion replied more passionately. The lioness nodded faintly. Jasmine and her group reached the base of a large mountain that surrounded the capital city of Stillwater. “Stillwater is in that valley.” Jasmine said looking up at the mountain. “We have to climb that?” Orianna whined, “Damn it!”  “Aw get over it.” Ty whispered, “You need more muscle on your a*s anyway.” Orianna rolled her eyes. “Come on we walked too far to just turn around” tawny quietly suggested. “She’s right let’s go.” Abigail started up the mountain to be followed by the rest. After a while, the mountain became more and more steep until they reached the summit. There they looked down into Stillwater Valley, the capital of Caniridia, which is populated mainly by foxes. “There it is.” Jasmine looked back at Orianna, “Wasn’t the climb worth it?” She didn’t reply. Further away the two lions peered down into the valley. “God that’s a lot of foxes…” the lioness said watching the many small figures walking around. “It’d be safe if we just stayed up here.” The male lion suggested turning around, “They catch even a scent of us, we’re dead.” Jasmine and her group reached the main gate of Stillwater valley. There, security was tight. Along the top of the wall, which surrounded the city, foxes that carried bows and arrows patrolled the perimeter for invaders. “Hello there,” a small vixen at the gate entrance kindly greeted, “come on in.” she pressed a red button which opened the heavy steel doors on the gate. For the first time, the group caught sight of the large city; Skyscrapers in the distance, a bridge that crossed the river to the other side, and not to mention tens of thousands of foxes that lived there. “Wow,” Savanna whispered in awe, “look at all the foxes! They’re sooo cute!” the streets were littered with small foxes each different in fur-color. They numbered by the thousands as they walked by doing their own things. The small group continued to walk towards a Small plateau where Brianna, a small fox with unusually dark red and black fur lived. They walked through the center of the financial district where the city was busiest. Thousands of foxes, with the occasional wolf rushed in every direction to get home. It was six o’clock and work had just ended so everyone rushed to get home. The group squeezed through the crowd of foxes to reach the base of the plateau. The plateau, Stillwater valley’s high class district, housed some of the richest foxes in all of the capital. Among them was Brianna, a very rich, Black and red fox. She lived in a mansion that was so big, occasionally even she would get lost in it. Jasmine and her group stood at the massive front door and rang the doorbell. From behind the door they could hear Brianna frantically running to the door. “Just a minute!” She cried in her subtle voice. Moments later Brianna appeared at the door. A look of surprise emerged on her face. “Oh my god Jasmine is that you?!” she quickly opened the door. “I can’t believe it! Come here give your old friend a hug!” “You haven’t changed a bit.” Jasmine smiled and gave her friend a hug. After she got through introducing her friends to her, Brianna ran to her large kitchen. “Come on in! Make yourselves at home! I’m going to go get you guy something to eat.” The group walked inside of her house which was the largest any of them had ever seen. Inside, a water fountain cascaded from the center of her living room with a seventy-two inch plasma television on one side of the wall.  On opposite sides of the room, two sets of crystal stair cases snaked from the first to the fourth floor.  In the center of the water fountain, a large platinum statue of a fox sat prestigiously.  The fourth floor held a gigantic skylight that displayed luminously the dawn sky. “You guys can go find a room; I’ve got tons of them.” Brianna shouted from her kitchen. The group split up to find rooms. The house was simply enormous. The house had six different living rooms on the first through fourth floors each differed only in the type of statue. The second and third floors were similar to a hotel in that hundreds of doors led to many different sized rooms. The fourth floor had a large library, an indoor pool, an entertainment system, and yet another kitchen. The roof had a penthouse equipped with an indoor and outdoor pool.

The back yard was even bigger. A pond full of koi fish surrounded by a vast garden made up the majority of it. The group had never seen such a large house before. Gold, platinum, silver, diamonds, all these precious stones made up the door knobs and door stoppers. It was obvious that money was no problem for Brianna. “Where did she get all of this money from?” Savanna wondered out loud walking through Brianna’s large mansion. “Her mother was a song artist.” Jasmine answered playing with the large TV, “When she died she left her with all of her money and her house.” “It’s beautiful,” Orianna said quietly strolling through the living room. Several minutes later Brianna appeared. “Hey, the food will be ready soon.” She went over to the TV and turned it on. “Tonight, our top story,” the newscaster, an arctic fox, announced, “With tension rising between Eucadia, England, and Siberia weapons production continues to rise as an all out arms race erupts between the powers.” She continued. “Government officials are still debating whether or not to set up higher security to protect the Republic Caniridia from Eucadian aggression. The Caniridia Intelligence Agency has already confirmed reports of Eucadia conducting a series aerial bomber tests that would put Caniridia in the danger zone should Eucadia decide to invade.” Brianna frowned. “England’s answer to this aggression is to, in turn, stock up their weapons and prepare for war.” The newscaster concluded, “Only time will tell.” Brianna took a deep sigh. “It’s a shame really.” She quietly sat down, “This whole war thing.” “What do you suppose might happen?” Jasmine asked sitting down next to her. Brianna hesitated. “I really don’t want to admit it, but I think they’re going to invade us.” Jasmine’s face lit up. “What? Why?” Brianna looked away. “We’re such an easy target. It’s only a matter of time before they attack.”

Flannery woke up later the next morning hung over. Her head pounded and the rest of her body ached like never before. She laid awake in bed for a while trying to remember what happened the day before. Terry still hadn’t come home. Desperately, Flannery struggled to get up. Even though her head hurt and her body ached, she was hungry. Slowly, she dragged along the hallway towards the steps where she turned around and began to ease her way gradually down the steps. Once she reached the bottom, she crawled to the kitchen. The elk her neighbor Anne gave her yesterday was halfway rotten as Flannery was too drunk to put it away. She opened the refrigerator to find it almost empty. “Damn it!” She said to herself as she slammed the door. Flannery crawled slowly to the bathroom. She flipped on the light and tried to avoid the shattered glass that was still on the ground. She climbed into the bathtub, turned on the warm water, and then dozed off. A few hours had passed before Flannery woke up from her nap. She shut off the water that she had left on and climbed out. Her hind legs first, she made contact with the floor but met no friction. Before she knew it, she had slipped out, hitting her head on the side before cutting it on the glass. Flannery got up, she was in intense pain. Blood poured out of the cut on her forehead into her eyes. At that moment all of her feelings rushed out and she began to cry silently to herself. “Awwwww… poor baby…” a voice from behind her took her by surprise. Flannery spun around to face her aggressive reflection in the shattered mirror. “You again!” Flannery rubbed the blood from her eyes. She was no longer afraid of her reflection but became angry at it, “You did all this to me!” Her reflection began to laugh at her, “You stupid girl, I’m you! You’re doing this to yourself!” Flannery tried to get up but she slipped on a pool of her blood. Her reflection began to laugh again. “Why are you doing this to me?” Flannery’s feelings shifted from anger to desperation, “I didn’t do anything wrong!” tears began to well up in her eyes. “It’s what you want Flannery.” Her aggressive side explained calmly. “You may think you’re happy with Terry Flannery, but deep down inside you feel like you’re just a little piece of her life.” It continued, “You want her for yourself and you’ll stop at nothing to get her.” Flannery looked up, tears flooding out of her eyes now “But I would never kill anyone!” Her aggressive side smiled spitefully, “Right, that’s where I come in.” The reflection then crawled out of the mirror and was standing face to face with her. Two Flanneries stood face to face. Both exactly alike except the aggressive one’s fur was darker red. Flannery’s hallucination seemed too real for her. She backed away but eventually her back contacted the wall. “Don’t be afraid.” Her aggressive side came close to her. Flannery was terrified. Her aggressive side reached out and ran her paws through Flannery’s hair. All of a sudden it disappeared. She was once again alone in the bathroom, alone, and afraid.

Terry slept in the couch of the break room for almost two nights now. No one was allowed to leave until the colonel said so. She got up and went to the phone. She thought about how she was going to explain this whole thing to Flannery. She dialed her house phone and waited. “Hello, Flannery? Okay I’m not going to be home for a while so you’ll have to go and kill yourself some food for the next couple of days okay?” she said nervously over the phone. Faintly across the other line, Flannery replied “Okay then I’ll catch you later, sweetheart. Love you.” Terry hung up the phone. It would be a few hours before the selected person would return with food to feed the unit. She had to wait until the company showers were vacant and she really had to pee. A small female quietly slid in the room. “So, how’s the investigation going so far?” Terry asked nervously. “They think it was you.” The female said quietly, “but there isn’t enough evidence to support that.” Terry looked down, “I wonder how Flannery’s doing; she isn’t used to being home alone this long.” The female, named Kaya looked at her. “I’m sure she’ll be fine, you have much better things to worry about.” Terry ignored her. Quickly, Kaya glanced at her “Hey here’s something I bet you don’t know.” Terry looked back at her, “what?” Kaya explained “Well there’s a secret operation going on where we’re going to bomb the hell out of Caniridia.” Terry was surprised, “When?” “I don’t know, but they think the murders are linked to this.” Kaya continued, “They believe that it’s some sort of conspiracy going down and guess who they think is heading it?” Terry looked away, “Me.” Kaya nodded.

Back at the house Flannery was cleaning up. She had picked up the glass, dried the floor, and did many other things to clean up. After her migraine had subsided and her forehead stopped bleeding, she figured she’d do some cleaning. Through it all she thought about what she had seen. It seemed all too real for her and she still didn’t understand. Was she carrying such an evil side of her? It was the only explanation. After she finished she sat by the window and read a book. Without warning, the door bell rang. She put down her book, slid off of the window still and headed for the door. Through the window she could see Anne. “Uh… hi, Flannery.” Anne greeted her with a half smile. Flannery was too drunk to remember kissing her. “Hey Anne what’s up?” Anne shifted her stance, “I was wondering if maybe you want to come over and have something to eat? I found a deer…” Anne stopped in the middle of her sentence and looked behind her. Then she turned back around to finish. “She’s a heavy one; I can’t eat her by myself…” Anne stopped and waited for a reply. Deep down inside Flannery wanted to refuse but her stomach roared like a lion. “Sure I’d love too.” She replied with a smile. “Great! So I’ll see ya later?” Anne smiled and trotted back to her house. Anne lived by herself because her father left her soon after her mother died. After she acquired a stable job, she began to flourish by herself. She, being an extreme optimist, saw the bright side in everything and was secretly bisexual. However, Anne was so lonely and quiet, everyone around her thought that she’d eventually commit suicide. Anne liked Flannery but was too afraid to admit it. Flannery, regretting her mistake, sat in front of the television set and watched the news. As usual, it talked about the war.

The night sky was lit up by the lights from Brianna’s house. Several things were going on and everyone was having fun. The group had separated. They all found more interesting things to do. Brianna, however, was more interested in the news. Rumors of Eucadia bombing Caniridia spread like wildfire. It was on the news, it was on the streets, the Caniridian army even sent out spies to investigate. Brianna’s worst fear was this. She was afraid of an invasion that would tear her country apart. From far off, the two lions had just begun walking back to their homeland. The lioness, named Heather was excited. Being abroad for about a week she was overjoyed when the male, named razor, decided to give up the chase and return home. Heather led most of the way ignoring the warnings that razor had given her. Razor, on the other hand, was disappointed in himself. He hung dangerously far back, not realize that he was being closely followed. “Wait up heather, not so fast.” He shouted. She quickly turned around “Hurry up you slowpoke I need a shower!” she was excited to go home. Without warning a sharp, four prong arrow shot from a distance and tore through razor’s side. He cried in pain and fell to his knees. Heather turned around swiftly and hurried to his side. “Oh my god…” she thought out loud. The arrow had drilled into his heart and blood poured out from it. From the distance she could hear several hundred foxes coming straight for them. “Razor come on we got to get out of here!” she cried. Razor looked back at her in pain. “I can’t…” she looked back up. The sound of the foxes was getting more intense. “Razor they’re getting closer! The foxes are getting closer!” heather desperately tried to get him up but it was no use. It was dark outside but she could feel the blood flooding from his wither.  “I’m gonna die heather!” he told her angrily, “If you don’t go they’ll kill you too!” Heather’s eyes filled up with tears, “I don’t want to leave you…” The foxes were so close now that she could hear them talking. Heather stayed with Razor until the foxes showed up. There were hundreds of them all armed. “Don’t you move or I’ll put one up your a*s.” One of them said pointing an arrow at her. Heather looked away “don’t hurt him…” she said gently stroking his mane. “If you don’t want one up yours I’d strongly suggest we get going.” another one said locking a small iron collar around her neck. She kissed him on one last time before the foxes forced her back towards Caniridia. Everything was going so right, but then… it just happened so fast heather couldn’t figure it all out. Razor died soon after.

Back at Brianna’s house, the alarms blared. The threat of the Eucadian bombing was confirmed. The bombers were en route. Everything would have been played out nicely however, Brianna fell asleep. Everyone else was busy with their own thing. The bombers were in the air headed for Caniridia, the invasion was on the way. Heather was behind bars when the alerts came in, the whole building was evacuated and she was left their by herself. Meanwhile, the whole city rushed to safe areas. The streets were crowded with foxes searching for the bomb bunkers. On the wall that surrounded the city, military foxes got into their anti-aircraft emplacements. Everyone had prepared for this, including Brianna, but she was asleep on the couch and no one knew what was to come. Minutes later the anti-craft guns blared. The roars of the plane engines woke Brianna up. “Oh god.” She said to herself. The first wave of bombers came in, dropping their heavy payloads upon the city below knocking out the power. The ground shook vigorously as each five-hundred pound bomb pounded the ground. Brianna rushed as fast as her little paws could carry her upstairs to get the others. She rushed into the room where everyone was panicking and she took immediate control. “Guys we’ve got to get to the basement, like NOW!” she cried, “Follow me!” Brianna ran down the stairs with the group following. All of a sudden a bomb hit her house, knocking everyone to the floor. The large fox statue in the fountain began to lean. Everyone got up and ran but Orianna turned around to find Savanna unconscious on the floor under the unstable statue. Quickly Orianna scooped Savanna up and turned around to run. The statue began to fall at the same time she began to run. In the knick of time Savanna was out of range from the heavy platinum statue but Orianna wasn’t. Thinking quickly, Jasmine ran back to get Savanna. It was too late for Orianna; she had been crushed by the statue. More bombs hit making the short journey to the basement treacherous. Glass fell everywhere, heavy metal beams occasionally loosened off of the roof and fell, and to make things worse, it began to rain. Brianna and the others dodged the falling debris and tried desperately to reach the stairs to the basement. The bombs continued to fall on the plateau and on the rest of the city killing everyone it could reach. The bombers continued to come as if they were a never ending rain of death. A bomb hit close to the group sending terrace and angle flying. She slowly got up but she couldn’t, she had broken one of her legs. Terrace hit the wall, crushing his skull and shattering his spine. It was a gruesome event; Angle limped the rest of the way, jasmine carried Savanna, Brianna led the way, Ty tried to keep up with one eye as the other one had been cut by glass, Abigail and Orianna’s sisters were stricken with grief for Orianna. Finally, they reached the basement stairs. They ran down to the basement to where the bomb drops were muffled, and everything was quiet.     

The building where Heather was held received heavy bombings also. She was buried, alive, under the debris. Finally, the first wave of bombers had ended. But she knew there’d be more so she quickly ran out to the street level. There, it was a horrible sight. It was dark, foggy, and rainy. The city had been shaken greatly. Bodies of victims that couldn’t escape the blasts were everywhere. Some of the AA emplacements were destroyed but others continued to light the sky with rounds. Heather ran to the nearest building and tried to find the basement. She frantically ran down the basement stairs for cover but when she reached the basement she was in for a surprise. There, hiding under the tables, were several school-aged foxes. They were hiding from the bombs in the same place. Heather walked quietly down the aisle. The foxes, scared of her as she was a lioness, hid their faces from her. In the corner, a small vixen hid from view. Heather reached out to her, “Don’t worry, I won’t…” she was interrupted by the second wave of bombers that came in. This wave carried more intense bombs that were more powerful than the first ones. “Bunker-Busters.” Heather whispered to herself. She knew that these types of bombs could rip through the basement. She picked up the small vixen in her mouth and wormed her way through the other side. Before she could warn the others, a Bunker Busting bomb shredded through the basement. Fire consumed the entire place killing every fox except Heather and the little vixen she was protecting. Heather held the vixen close to her to protect it from the flying debris and flame that erupted from the explosion. Now, they were both exposed to the sky. Heather looked up and saw the bombers flying over. Lightning lit up the sky and raindrops fell as the planes flew in a formation that covered it. AA emplacements fired at the bombers with a futile attempt to stop them, but they failed. All heather could do was wait until the second wave was over.

Flannery walked nervously across the street. There was a thunderstorm out and she wanted to go home and sleep through it, but she had promised Anne that she’d come over later. Flannery stood at the door and rang the doorbell twice. In her mouth, she carried roses to give to Anne and a bottle of white wine. Anne opened the door and happily greeted Flannery. “Hey glad you could make it! Come in, come in!” she went into the living room. Flannery followed. In the living room was a table neatly set with remnants of a deer carcass on it. “Go on sit down.” Anne said reassuringly heading back into the kitchen to get more food. The news was on the TV discussing the planned invasion tonight. “The first part of the plan is being executed as we speak.” The telecaster announced. At that moment, Flannery felt the strange dizzy-sensation that she had twice before. Her aggressive side was taking over again. She tried to leave but she couldn’t; it was overtaking her quickly this time and before she realized it she was once again powerless to her aggression. Anne returned with a tray. She caught sight of Flannery and immediately noticed her fur was darker and her hair sort of spiked a bit. “Flannery are you o…” the aggressive Flannery slowly turned around. She dropped the tray of food. Anne, terrified by Flannery’s sharp canines and her reddish yellow eyes backed away slowly. “Flannery?” Anne quietly inquired. Flannery, without wasting a second, jumped over the table and seized Anne’s throat between her fangs. Anne tried to fight back by digging her claws into Flannery’s side; a move that forced Flannery to release her. She tried to escaped but Flannery leaped in front of her and scratched Anne across the face. She realized that if she didn’t fight back, Flannery would kill her. She ran under Flannery to the kitchen but she was too slow. Flannery grabbed her tail and through her against the wall. Quickly recovering from this, she tried her own offensive by going for Flannery’s throat. It was a failed attempt that allowed Flannery to dig her razor-sharp claws into Anne’s chest. She was badly injured and she knew that Flannery had an edge over her. Flannery was larger, Faster, and more agile than Anne and she knew it. She smiled as she walked slowly to Anne who was trying to escape. “Just give up; you’re not going to win anyway.” She snarled getting closer to her. Anne ran and jumped on top of Flannery’s head and clamped her jaws onto one of her ears. She vigorously attempted to shake Anne loose. She turned around and ran Anne into a wall. Her head crashed through a picture of her mother hanging on the wall and, in pain, released the hold on Flannery’s ears. Then, in a quick moment, Flannery grasped Anne’s throat once again in her jaws. Anne Knew she couldn’t escape. “W-w-why are you doing this?” she cried in pain. Flannery didn’t reply but instead, with a quick jerk, snapped Anne’s neck.

Brianna, Jasmine, Savanna, Ty, Katianna, Abigail, Angel, Tawny, Arianna, and Kitanna all waited anxiously for the second wave to finish. They had already lost most of their group. Orianna, Terrace, and Kaitlynn were just a few known casualties. Jasmine sat silently comforting Katianna who lost two of her sisters. Savanna was still unconscious. Ty laid on Abigail’s chest and slept lightly. Brianna tried to get a radio to operate. The last bomb fell and the sound of bombers quickly faded. The second wave was done. “It’s safe, for now.” Brianna announced as she opened the basement door. Her house had taken a hit however it still stood. The rain increased and the storm became more intense as Heather carried the little vixen out of the destroyed basement. Outside on the badly damaged street, Heather set the vixen down and looked around for a new hiding spot. The vixen was very quiet. “What’s your name?” Heather quietly lifted the small vixen on her back. The vixen whispered “Victoria,” and said nothing else. Heather found a safe place to hide, set down Victoria, and searched the basement for food. “You hungry?” The Vixen nodded her head slightly.

Back at Brianna’s house, they found an operating radio phone. She tried the number of a friend she had that lived near the bay area and much to Brianna’s surprise she answered. “Hello, Brianna?” her friend answered. “Oh thank god you’re okay. Where are you? What’s going on?” Her friend replied “You were right; the Eucadians were planning an evasion.” She continued. “After the Third Wave is over, the Eucadian army will storm the place so get out of there!” Brianna was surprised by this. “When will the third wave take place?” Her friend replied. “I’d say about forty-five minutes. The planes have to refuel and all that.” Brianna nodded “Okay we’ll be there in a minute.” and hung up. She turned towards the group. “Okay guys, we’re headed to the bay area.”  Everyone was surprised by this. “But what if they bomb us again?” Ty sounded afraid. “The next one is in forty-five.” Brianna continued “If we run, we’ll be able to make it.” She explained the situation and eventually everyone agreed and followed her to the Caniridia bay area. On the other side of the city, Heather had no luck. Every place she had looked for shelter in didn’t provide sufficient protection against the bombers. She and Victoria walked silently through the dead ruins where a few survivors struggled to find another place to hide. Military bunkers, for the military only, were off limits to the public so the civilians had to do their best to seek shelter wherever. Heather wandered all the way to the City hall, one of the only structures still standing, and hid there. Victoria, an arctic fox, struggled to stay warm in the cold, wet cellar where they hid. Heather knew that she and the small vixen weren’t safe in the cellar of the city hall. The building, already badly damaged, could not survive another round of bombs so after she rested for a while, heather picked up the small vixen, left the building, and headed to the mountains where she would leave the city. Neither Heather nor Victoria knew when the next wave would hit, but Brianna knew it would hit in less than 20 minutes.

The moon and the distance fires lit up the night sky. It continued to rain and thunder and to make matters worse, it began to fog. Brianna had led jasmine and the others to a bayside warehouse where her friend, Allue, and her puppies found shelter from the bombs. The warehouse was located under a four-mile-long bridge that crossed the river into Stillwater’s island district. The warehouse had received a considerable amount of damage from the bombs, but was still standing. Cautiously Brianna knocked on the heavy door. “Hello?” A voice whispered quietly from behind the door. “It’s me,” Brianna replied. “Okay, come in.” Allue, an adult female wolf with light blue, silver, and white fur opened the door. Behind her, twelve of her puppies slept soundly. “Keep your voices down, I don’t want to run around and catch them again.” She smiled and returned to where she was sitting by a fire. “What’s going on?” Angel asked still shivering from the rain. She had no idea. Jasmine was quietly explaining to her the situation when, from a distance, she could hear the familiar sounds of the bomber’s engines. “Here we go again.” Allue sighed. She had no sign of fear, as if she knew what was going to happen. Immediately, the ground once again began to shake. The sound of bombs exploding on the ground returned and began to move towards the bay area. Around the warehouse, the bombs destroyed everything. The group could feel the bombs hitting the bridge above them. All the assembly could do now was wait until it was over.

A loud crash of thunder woke Flannery up. It was dark, raining, and Flannery could only vaguely remember what she had done a few hours ago. Small amounts of blood emptied from the cut she had acquired from Anne. But she couldn’t remember where they had come from. Flannery slid off of the couch where she slept and went over to the phone. The answering machine flashed “four missed calls”. Flannery knew it was Terry worrying about her being home by herself so she rolled her eyes and walked back into the living room. Flannery climbed back on the couch and began to read. A while later, a large bolt of lightning lit up the sky and knocked out the power. “Great,” Flannery thought to herself. Trying to turn the lamp back on, another bolt of lightning flashed. During the split second of that flash, she swore she saw someone out of the corner of her eye. She kept her eyes on the spot where she thought she saw a shady figure and waited for another flash of lightning. When it came, she saw nothing. “Hmmm,” she shrugged and headed towards the fuse box. Suddenly, another flash of lightning revealed a figure standing down the hall from her. She froze in fear. Another small flash followed by a large boom of thunder revealed the same figure walking towards her. Flannery’s heart raced. Flash after flash revealed the figure coming closer and closer to her. Flannery was so dizzy with fear now. The figure was only a few feet from her according to the most recent flash of lightning. Then, another flash of lightning exposed the whereabouts of the figured. It was looking her in the eyes, only an inch away from her. Flannery screamed to the top of her lungs. The flash had lasted a few seconds and the figure remained unknown. She ran out of breath from screaming when the lights came back on. The figure had disappeared and Flannery stood by herself in the hall. Everything that happened to her that night scared Flannery out of her mind. She needed Terry, and she needed her now.

Flannery ran vigorously in the rain toward the headquarters. She hadn’t thought about what to say, she hadn’t thought about what to do. All she thought about was being in Terry’s arms. She stood in front of the HQ where two wolves guarded the entrance. “No one is allowed in,” One of them said to her “There’s an investigation going on.” “Please, I just need to see Terry.” Her frustration began to build. “No one is allowed in.” The wolf repeated to her. Flannery began to cry desperately. “Please I walked all this way, I don’t know how to get home, its cold, I-I-I’m scared, and…and,” She began to cry heavily “I just want to see her…” the wolf ignored her and repeated for the third time, “No one is allowed in.” Flannery felt the dizzy sensation coming on. In desperation to control it, she turned and ran back home. Tears and rain droplets ran don her face as she continued to run back. The dizziness had subsided but she wanted to be sure. Tons of emotions were boiling up inside her; she didn’t know what to do. The rain had increased, it was dark, and she was terrified of the lightning, Flannery was in the worst possible situation she could be in. Finally, after miles of running, Flannery reached Terry’s house. Flannery staggered in. Tired and hungry, she crawled slowly to the refrigerator to get something to drink, but exhaustion overtook her. The night seemed the longest ever and Flannery wanted it to be over. She laid down on the carpet in the kitchen and slept peacefully.

Allue sat by herself near the large window that faced the river. The bombs had continued to fall however less intense. She sat, staring out the window at the same time comforting her puppies thinking about what was happening, but she thought more about what was to come. After the bombing runs ended, she knew that Eucadia had an invasion planned and she could not imagine how a number of small, badly injured foxes would stand out against an army of large, vicious, and well-trained wolves. Her worry was on the survival of the groups she led. Her, her puppies, jasmine and her companions, and Brianna all relied upon her knowledge and quick decision making. Inside she knew that the decisions that she made could either save the lives of her followers, or it could land them in the middle of an all-out land battle between the Eucadian wolves and the Caniridian foxes. Minutes passed and the bombs began to slow until the last one struck the city. Allue waited a while before going outside to survey their next move. The city had been torn apart; buildings lay in ruins, roads had been cratered, and the many civilian casualties were a direct result of the bombing. To make matters worse, Allue knew that an army of Eucadian wolves would shortly follow. Thousands of foxes that made up Caniridia’s army poured from the military bomb bunkers. They began to head east, where the Eucadians were advancing. Allue watched as the Caniridian army, mostly made up of small foxes about jasmine’s age, marched towards the front lines to face an enemy three times their size, two times their numbers, and 5 times their strength.

Allue knew it was definitely time to go; but where? If they headed over the bridge back towards the island, they might eventually be trapped should the wolves get that far. If they followed the army, they’d get caught in the fighting. Putting all of these scenarios in account, she decided to escape over the mountains that surrounded the city. It was long and perilous, but it was the safest way out of the city. Allue returned to the warehouse where everyone waited. “Eucadia is coming.” She said “We need to leave because it’s going to get busy around here really soon.” Allue continued, “I think the safest way is over the mountains…” She waited for their reactions but she received none. “What if Eucadia plans to flank the city, you know, surround us?” Brianna quickly recited. “Even though Shock and Awe is a possible military strategy they might use, the city is way too big around for them to be able to surround the whole thing.” Allue added, “As they spread, the front line becomes thinner with personnel making it easier for us to push through it.” “What about the lions?” Jasmine quietly suggested, “They’re a factor in this too aren’t they? Don’t they want the city too?” Allue looked away, and then back at her. “I can’t say. Perhaps maybe the lions might flank from the north and south.” She paused. “That’d be disastrous for Caniridia.” Everyone sat in silence for a while thinking about the choices they had. They could stay and hope that the foxes could hold off the Eucadians. They could escape over the mountains, or they could retreat to the island and hope that the army can isolate it from invasion. Another factor, however, that Allue overlooked was the lion animals larger, stronger, and more powerful than wolves. They too wanted the Caniridia but they refused to fight the foxes for it. “Seeing that Eucadia is making a grab for Caniridia, it is very unlikely that the lions won’t intervene.” Jasmine added. She didn’t know that what she had suggested was true. While the Eucadian wolves advanced from the east, and the Caniridian foxes from the west, the Imperial Lion army flanked from the south. A ground, three-way battle was definitely in progress.         

The silent noise of the oscillating fan was the only sound in the room. Terry sat, by herself in her office waiting for something to happen. The individual, who was elected to retrieve food and other necessary items, left a while ago to pick up dinner. Since no one in the building was allowed to leave until the lieutenant’s murder was solved, someone had to go get the food. Terry waited anxiously in her office for the news. Everyone in the office building thought that she was the killer so everyone, except Kaya, ignored Terry completely. She picked up a picture of Flannery she had on her desk and gazed at it for a while. Terry smiled, realizing how cute Flannery was to her and knowing that, if nothing else, she was at home waiting for her. The door to Terry’s office slowly creaked open and she quickly sat up, dropping Flannery’s picture. “Terry, you awake?” Kaya spoke quietly as if she were withholding a secret. “Yea I’m awake, what’s up?” Terry replied nervously. “Well, the investigation is going nowhere and they don’t think that it’s you who killed them.” Terry was shocked, “Why don’t they think it’s me anymore?” Kaya sat, “honestly, I don’t know. But what I do know is that the slices in his neck are wide,” She continued, “and they’re very deep.” Terry was confused by this. “What does that have to do with me?” Kaya leaned closer to her and spoke quieter. “Don’t you see? They think that a lion did it; but that’s not possible.” Kaya looked back and then continued, “I think there’s a Veridian spy here.” Terry rolled her eyes. “No really!” Kaya was fixed on this theory. “What else would explain this?!” Terry laughed, “A dragon maybe?” “You’re a b***h you know that? As if you weren’t about to get locked up for the rest of your life.” Kaya snapped lightly and left the room.  “Wow,” Terry thought to herself.

From the top of the mountain, Allue and her followers saw the Caniridian foxes’ advance towards the opposite side; a dark crowd of Eucadians, large fearless wolves, approached in great numbers from the East. Civilian foxes fled in different directions as the land between the Caniridian army and the Eucadian wolves shrank. Those unfortunate foxes that ran east were shredded apart by the Eucadian army. “Poor foxes…” Angel whispered to herself as they began down the mountain. “So where’re we headed?” Ty whined following closely behind Allue. Her scent excited him. “We’re going home, sweetheart.” She replied without looking back. Halfway down the mountain, the tree line became thin and the moon provided plenty of light. From a distance, they could see several hundred shadows coming from the forest on the plain. Allue froze. The several hundred shadows became several thousands coming from the forest. “Lions…” Allue breathed. Her worst fears had been realized. The Imperial Lion Army was advancing from the forest by the thousands headed toward the south side of Caniridia’s borders. Allue was frozen with fear. With an army of five-hundred pound, Well-organized lions heading towards them, she had no idea what to do next. The group was stricken with confusion. “Where do we go now?” Allue searched for possible escape routes that would direct them away from the advancing lions. “Follow me, and be very quiet.” Allue quietly ordered the group and they headed vertically down the right side of the mountain; away from the advancing army. The group was close to the bottom now and the ILA was close to them; so close that they could hear the heavy steps and breathing of the lions. The farther down they arrives, the closer the lions were to them. At one point, Jasmine brushed unnoticeably against one. Allue and her small party had finally reached the bottom of the mountain and halfway into the forest where they successfully evaded the ILA. “Okay we’re safe now.” Allue returned to her normal tone, she was relieved that everyone escaped safely. “That was awesome!” Ty loved it. “No it wasn’t, it was scary.” Savanna gently reacted. “I touched one of them.” Jasmine shivered at the feeling. Brianna laughed “Lets NEVER do that again.”

Flannery woke up to the quiet humming of the refrigerator. The thunderstorm continued to roar outside making Flannery wonder how long the night would last. She looked over at the clock that read 3 A.M, “god…” she moaned picking herself off of the carpet. Flannery was dizzy from lack of food so she searched the kitchen for food with no luck. “Awww come on…” she thought to herself. Terry hadn’t been home in several days, so she had to kill her own food tonight. Flannery walked lazily across the street to Anne’s house not knowing that she had killed her hours ago. Flannery stood at the door and rang the doorbell. “Anne, you home?” She desperately called, “Hellooo?” The door was cracked open a bit so she invited herself in; what she saw stunned her. Anne’s house was a mess: papers all over, tables were knocked over, and there was blood everywhere. “What the…” Flannery walked cautiously into the living room where Anne’s lifeless body laid. Flannery’s heart skipped. Her body all of a sudden turned cold and she stood there motionlessly. “Oh god…” She slowly backed away. “She was really annoying.” A voice spoke out. Flannery whirled around to be face to face with her aggressive side sitting casually on the couch watching TV, “I had to slaughter that little rat or she would’ve driven me nuts.” Flannery was filled with anger and extreme sadness; she couldn’t reply to her aggression because she was choked up with intense emotions. “You’re welcome by the way,” Her aggressive side smirked changing the channel. All of a sudden, Flannery’s emotions rushed out. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?! Why are you trying to ruin my life?!” Flannery cried with tears streaming from her eyes; her frustration had flooded along with fear, and anger. Her aggression smiled and looked back at her, “I’m you remember?” Flannery snapped back, “NO you’re NOT me!! I’d NEVER kill ANYONE!!! Just LEAVE ME ALONE!” Tears of anger and frustration cascaded from her eyes, “Just leave me alone…” Her aggressive waited, “You sound like a little puppy, grow up would ya?” Flannery slid out her claws, “I’ll kill you if you don’t shut up!” Her aggressive side began to laugh hysterically, “You’re stupider than I thought! You can’t kill me stupid I AM YOU.” Flannery became uncontrollably angry. She ran over to where she had hallucinated where her aggression sat and tried desperately to kill it; but it wasn’t even there. She was just imagining it. Flannery realized this and her hopelessness weighed down on her. She felt extreme pity, not only for herself, but for everyone else she had affected. She looked over at Anne. There she lay quiet and unresponsive as a result of Anne’s Counter personality. Flannery felt worse thinking about her. “She just wanted to be friends…” she thought to herself. Flannery sat down next to Anne’s Shredded, lifeless body and gently ran her paws through Anne’s hair. “I’m sorry…” she cried quietly to herself, “I’m so sorry.”

Heather and Victoria continued south-east from where they came; they headed back home to heather’s house, a small cottage miles away from the nearest city. “Almost there.” She encouraged Victoria who slept quietly on her back. Miles and miles went on before she finally reached her house beside a calm river. “Home sweet home.” Heather smiled to Victoria and headed in. An unusual silence filled the cottage as Heather and Victoria entered. “Things are going to be kinda weird now,” Heather broke the silence, “with razor gone and all.” Heather was saddened by the thought of him. “He was mean sometimes,” she smiled dully, “Well most of the time.” “But other than that he was just a joy to be around.” Heather gently placed the small vixen on the couch and covered her up. A picture of Razor in the eleventh she had sitting on a table grade caught heather’s attention. She picked up the picture and gazed at it. “I almost forgot how cute you are.” She held on to the picture as her mind took her back to the dark, cold, and dull night on the plain where she kissed him for the last time. She remembered the feeling of his mane as she ran her paws through it knowing she would never feel it again; and she could never forget the feeling of his warm blood as it spewed continuously from his side. The memories clouded her mind and made her dizzy; she didn’t want to remember him, it was too painful. Tears formed around her eyes, “I wanted his cubs…” she tried to smile but she couldn’t. She continued to think about Razor; all the fun they had earlier and how she would piss him off constantly and how, eventually, they’d make up. She remembered how he always acted like he hated her and always yelled at her but she secretly loved him, and he secretly loved her. Heather put down Razor’s High school Picture and went into the kitchen to prepare some food for Victoria and her. “Good times,” Heather thought sadly to herself, “Good times.”

“WAKE UP!” Ty shouted obnoxiously to the still sleeping group. The morning had finally come and the sun was already up fully. “Shut up will ya? I’m trying to sleep.” Jasmine sighed turning over. Allue didn’t respond at all. “Come on! Wake your lazy asses up!” Ty barked at the group once more. “Shut up!” Abigail roared back. She had gotten less sleep than any of the others so she was the most irritable.  Ten of Allue’s twelve puppies slept silently next to her. Nobody would notice that two of Allue’s puppies, Sarah and Patrick, had remained asleep in the warehouse until it was too late to do anything. “Come on, man!!” Ty desperately tried to wake up the group. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?” Brianna woke up confused, “What’s with all the noise?” Ty looked blankly at her, “Its day time, and I’m hungry!” Brianna rolled her eyes, “Well go find something to eat then, I’m sure there lots of deer around here…” Ty cut her off, then frowned, “I don’t want to go by myself, man. Something might kill me!” “Awww grow some.” Abigail said from a short distance. All of a sudden, Allue’s scent caught Ty’s immediate attention. Since he was young, he lived for girls even though he had never even kissed one before. Allue gave off an intense scent as all females do when they’re in heat. He stood watching her as she slept peacefully under a tree. “My god, she’s HOT” He thought to himself despite the fact that she had twelve puppies. The closer he got to her, the more intense her scent was. He was so close to her now it was almost unbearable to ignore. Luckily for him, she woke up right on time. “Hey Ty, morning.” She said with a smile, ignoring the fact that he was awkwardly close to her. She got up and brushed past him. “D****t” He thought to himself as Allue’s scent caught his nose for a split-second before vanishing in the air. Jasmine sat under a tree trying to remember where she was, Brianna continued to sleep, Allue went to catch food with Abigail, Savanna and the rest of the group continued to sleep. “This sucks!” Ty whined, “There’s nothing to do!” Jasmine smiled at him, “Go to sleep.” Ty ignored her. “Want to go find some water?” Brianna mumbled in her sleep, “I’m thirsty.” Ty thought for a moment, “How about…NO?” he replied sharply. Brianna shrugged. “Okay fine,” Ty reluctantly agreed, “But it’s just cause I’m thirsty too!” Brianna shrugged again.

Flannery woke up in her bed after the long night behind her. She felt numb with emotions that crammed her head. Slowly she slid out of bed to open the curtains revealing the nice and warm afternoon. She climbed down the stairs to the living room that was the same as she left it. “Where is she?” Flannery thought out loud worrying about Terry. After washing and freshening up, Flannery left the house toward the markets to find something to eat. Meanwhile, Terry slept peacefully in her office. All of a sudden the door flung open. Terry sat up quickly in surprise only to find Kaya leaning on the door frame. “What’s up?” Kaya smiled passionately, “Are you hungry?” Terry stretched and then got up from the chair, “Yeah what’s for breakfast?” “You mean lunch? Your lazy a*s slept through breakfast!” Kaya replied with a smile, “Your lunch is whatever’s leftover.” Terry ignored her, “So how is the investigation going?” Kaya’s face lit up, “Oh yeah I forgot to tell you, they might call it off.” Terry was astonished by the news, “What why?!” “Well Price was keeping us here for days without probable cause so it was unlawful.” Kaya replied “So you might be able to go home and see your little girlfriend tonight.” “Yea that’d be great…” Terry smiled at the thought of her and Flannery being together after the long period they had been separated. “So why do you date such a young puppy anyway? Are you that desperate?” Kaya asked nosily. Terry was caught off guard by this question, “What do you mean?” “Well she is like… How old is she?” Kaya replied continuing the subject. “Well it’s certainly none of your business is it, Kaya?” Terry sharply replied angrily at Kaya who in turn kept a relaxed attitude. “Look I’m just saying, there are cuter, older girls than her you know? I bet living with her is like baby-sitting a puppy isn’t it?” Kaya launched another attack. Terry thought for a second. She was sort of young and she did act a lot like a puppy. “Sometimes…” Terry replied weakly. “See? I bet it’d be nice to date a girl old enough to help around the house you know? There are tons of pretty girls out there who would kill to date you.” Kaya continued, “If I were you, I’d get one that can get a job and help pay some bills. One who can fend for herself and at least kill her own food. Seriously Terry, when you wanted a girlfriend, did you ask for a puppy?” With that Kaya left Terry’s office. Terry thought deeply about everything Kaya had told her about Flannery. Perhaps Flannery was just too childish for her. “Maybe it would be in our best interest” Terry concluded to herself, “If we just went our separate ways.”

Hours passed and finally the lieutenant showed up with some good news; “Looks like we’re finally going home,” The Lieutenant explained, “The colonel called off the investigation since CSI was obviously getting nowhere.” “So when can we go?” Kaya quickly asked. “Right now actually.” The lieutenant answered leaving the meeting room. Everybody herded out of the conference and out of the building except Terry who paced slowly home wondering how she was going to break up Flannery. “Hey wait up!” Terry stopped and glanced behind her to see Kaya desperately trying to keep up. “So what are you going to do when you get home? I’m going to shower and eat, and…” Terry cut her off, “I’m going to break up with Flannery.” Kaya stopped dead in her tracks, “What?! Why?” Terry continued her slow pace home, “You were right, maybe we should at least look for girls our own age right?” Kaya felt guilty, she knew how sensitive Flannery was and she didn’t even want to think about how she would take the news. “Did you think about it first?” Terry ignored her and continued home. A few blocks away, Terry stood at the door of her house. She had gone over what she was going to say to Flannery hundreds of times in her head but she wasn’t ready. She stuck the key in the door and opened it slowly. Terry walked in and as she was walking down the hall she heard Flannery’s voice. “Terry? Is that you?!” Terry froze in surprise and fear. Everything that she had rehearsed fell from her memory. From behind, Flannery ran up and lovingly embraced Terry’s leg holding it tight. “Oh my god I missed you sooo much!” Flannery was so excited to see Terry she could hardly contain it, “Wait till you hear about everything that happened while you were gone! So they finally let you guys go huh?”  Terry didn’t respond; instead, she looked away. “What’s wrong sweetheart?” Flannery let go of Terry’s leg. “Flannery I was thinking about… you and me.” Terry spoke softly and as compassionately as she could. “What do you mean?” Flannery was a bit nervous now. “I was thinking… maybe… we should just, you know…” Terry tried her best to come to the point but she was afraid of hurting Flannery’s feelings. “What’s wrong Terry? Are you feeling okay?” Flannery asked rubbing Terry’s back softly. Terry pushed her away. “Flannery I think we should break up,” she spilled out her feelings, “I mean nothing personal but you’re really young and I thought, maybe, you should go find some other… girl… your age and I can find one, mine…” Flannery turned cold. Her ears dropped and her heart sank. “W-w-wait, what?” Flannery didn’t want to believe what she had heard. Terry looked away. “But I, I love you…” Flannery squealed out trying not to cry. “I think it’s for the best of both of us.” Terry added quietly. “Terry wait I can…” Flannery tried to soften the situation, “I can grow up, I-I can stop acting like a puppy if you want I-I’ll try my best just,” Tears clouded her eyes, “Please don’t do this to me…” Terry looked down at the floor where a puddle of her own tears accumulated. Flannery couldn’t move, she was shivering all over. “What did I do?” she cried softly trying to get Terry to take back what she had said. “Nothing Flannery you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just that…” She couldn’t continue talking about it. “Just what? What!” Flannery cried desperately to Terry. She didn’t respond. Flannery tried one last time “Terry, please…” Terry looked back at her, “You can stay at the apartment I’m renting out.” With that she walked slowly out the door and down the street. Flannery was left all alone sitting in the hallway. She couldn’t think straight, everything that had happened to her the past few days, she thought, could be easily be fixed by seeing her girlfriend again. She knew that Terry could make everything better for her but now what could she do? She loved Terry more than anything in the world and now she’s gone. Flannery sat in the dark hallway by herself and cried bitterly in desperation without end.

The Afternoon turned into evening and it was then that the group decided to continue on. Everyone who had slept throughout the day was full of energy as opposed to Ty who was nearly exhausted. They continued on toward Veridia through the grassland that soon turned into a dark, thick forest. “I don’t remember the forest being this dense since I was last here,” Allue thought out loud surveying the surroundings. “You must have not been around here for some time then.” Brianna replied, “It’s been like this for years.” Ty hung around the back of the group walking with a slow, tired pace. “Hurry up Ty! We don’t have all day!” Angel smiled at him from the front. “Shut up you…” he was too tired to finish his insult. “Maybe you should have stayed asleep today.” Jasmine laughed. Pretty soon, the forest turned into grassland. “We’re almost at the river,” Allue announced from the head of the group. “Finally…” Savanna was also exhausted from playing all afternoon. “What you so happy about?” Ty snapped at Savanna, “You know it’s like a million miles across?” “No it’s not…” Savanna muttered to herself and brushed passed Ty. They continued to cross the rolling hills of the grassland until they reached the summit of a large hill that peeked over the vast grassland and, on the horizon, a large river that snaked through it. “See? There it is!” Savanna pointed towards the horizon. “It’s so far away,” Alex whined, “We’ll be walking for days…” Ty agreed with him. Brianna looked back at them, “You guys are so lazy, perhaps you should exercise more and stop playing video games all the time.” “Well you need to stop reading and maybe exercise more too you little nerd!” Ty attacked back at her. “Reading makes you smart. Video games make you stupid.” Angel added. “No they don’t! Alex help me out here man!” Ty was being overwhelmed. “Oh wait I’m sorry, I don’t want to make you argue with your girlfriend.” He laughed at Alex walking ahead. Angel smiled at Alex and continued to walk with Allue and the others. “What’s with you man?” Alex questioned secretly. “What? What I do?” Ty smiled. “You know what your doing don’t act stupid!” Alex barked at Ty. “Look, I’m trying to help you out. If you don’t get her now, she’s going to go for some other guy, idiot.” Ty replied innocently. Alex got quiet, “you think she’d go for someone else?” He quietly asked. “Hell, I would.” Ty shrugged. “But what if she doesn’t like me?” Alex continued to chase the subject. “It’s worth a try. I mean, it worked for me.” Ty smiled glancing at Allue. “Dude she’s got twelve puppies!” Alex couldn’t believe Ty would even look at her that way. Ty countered, “So. She’s still hot.”

The sun was setting when Terry reached Kaya’s house. “Kaya, are you there?” Terry inquired knocking on the door. Immediately, Kaya ran to the door and opened it. Before Terry could speak Kaya quickly interrogated, “Oh my god please tell me you didn’t!” Terry sadly nodded her head. “Terry!” Kaya exclaimed. She was on the verge of tears. “I had to Kaya, she’s young and she’s…” Kaya interrupted her, “She’s what Terry? She’s perfect for you that’s what!” Terry became angry at her. “Oh, well NOW you think we’re perfect for each other huh? Just a few hours ago I could have sworn you were the one telling me that we weren’t going to make it together!” “I didn’t say all that!” Kaya tried to gain some ground on the dispute, “All I said was to think about it!” Terry’s face began to redden, “Well it’s too late now Kaya!” Kaya was mostly concerned with losing her best friend than losing the argument. “If it makes you feel a bit better than I’m sorry!” she screamed. “You know what Kaya? You can go somewhere and DIE for all I care! Some friend you are!” Terry at her and then left back towards her house. Kaya sat at her door for a while thinking about how she ruined Flannery’s life. “Poor girl…” Kaya thought to herself and closed her door. Terry walked angrily into her house. Flannery laid motionlessly on the couch still shattered by the news. “What the hell are you still doing here!?” Terry’s fury rushed out on Flannery unintentionally. “Terry I…” Flannery weakly muttered to her. “You WHAT?” Terry viciously questioned her. “I-I have no place to go…” Flannery said ineffectively. Terry’s anger only made Flannery feel worse, “Why are you yelling at me?” Terry looked spitefully at her. “If you don’t get out of my house in ten seconds…” Her fury began to surface. Slowly, Flannery backed away, “What’s wrong with you?” “Ten,” Terry began to count down. Flannery desperately tried to get away from her but the wall blocked her path. “Nine,” Terry continued. Flannery could see the fury in Terry’s eyes but she didn’t understand why she was so mad. “Eight…seven… six…five…four…three…two,” Terry began pacing quickly towards her. “Terry I don’t understand, why are you…” before Flannery could finish, Terry grabbed her by the back of her neck and clamped down on it as her as she could. Flannery howled in pain as Terry picked her up by the neck and briskly strutted toward the door. In her pain, Flannery could feel her aggression taking over; he tried desperately to stop it from making the situation worse but there was no use. It had taken her over. Flannery tore her claws through the side of Terry’s face forcing her to release the painful grip. When Flannery hit the floor she recovered immediately and went on attacking her. Terry’s anger and Flannery’s aggressive clashed as a result of their feelings flooding out. Two wolves formerly in love were now trying to kill each other. Flannery constantly went for Terry’s throat but she could never reach it. Instead, Terry could always counter and get Flannery in the stomach. She was getting tired and could feel the aggression subsiding but Terry’s fury continued on tearing her apart. Minutes passed and Flannery was severely injured. She thought for sure that Terry was going to kill her; but she didn’t. Instead Terry returned to a somewhat stable anger. “Get out!” She roared at Flannery who lamely ran out of the house. The door slammed behind her as she limped down the street. Flannery wished that she had never gone off on Terry, after all, they were in love with each other. Even though they had just got through fighting, Flannery still love terry but it hurt her even more knowing that there was no chance of them getting back together.  She went on down the street towards the secluded forest with her sorrow, desperation, remorse and a small trail of tears following. 

Back at the house Terry cried bitterly. She let the anger she had for Kaya out on Flannery unintentionally. “Why did I do that?!” She cried shamefully. Terry still loved Flannery and she wished that she hadn’t listened to Kaya; she regretted hurting Flannery’s feelings. Desperate for her girlfriend back she ran outside of her house and cried Flannery’s name as loud as she could; but Flannery was long gone. In the secluded forest, Flannery sat alone under a tree and licked her wounds. She was still confused about what had happened, but she couldn’t think about that now; she had to find a place to sleep. Flannery walked uphill alongside a river bank to find shelter for the night. Her legs ached and she had twisted one of her ankles fighting Terry. The sun had almost completely gone down so she decided to make shelter under a small thicket. She crawled under, curled up, and drifted off to sleep. An hour passed by and Flannery was waken by the sound of footsteps. She tucked herself deeper into the thicket to avoid detection. “Hello?” A small, frail sounding voice called out from a distance. The voice sounded like a female her age so she responded in a quiet innocent voice. “Who are you?” The mysterious figure poked its head from behind a tree. “My name is Flora…” The figure replied more confidently and she walked cautiously towards Flannery, “What yours?” “Flannery,” Flannery replied pulling herself from the thicket. Flora had large ears and a bushy tail so Flannery knew that she was a fox. She came cautiously towards Flannery and observed her, “Are you hurt?” Flannery nodded. “What are you doing out here? It’s almost night time…” Flora spoke compassionately as she studied Flannery’s wounds. “My girlfriend left me…” Flannery replied quietly, “She kicked me out so I have no place to go.” Flora’s face lit up. “You can come and stay with me! I have a little house just up stream!” she exclaimed. “O-okay…” Flannery took the opportunity. Back at Flora’s house Flannery laid flat on the couch while Flora, a grey and white vixen, stitched her up. “So your girlfriend left you?” She tried to spark conversation. Flannery nodded, “Yea I don’t know why… She came home once and then she…just went off on me and kicked me out.” Flora smiled, “She must be crazy, you’re really cute and you seem like a nice wolf.” “Thanks” Flannery replied with a half-smile.  After Flora was finished tending to Flannery, she left to find food; a short while later she returned with a rabbit. “Sorry I can’t catch anything bigger,” she explained to Flannery. “No it’s okay, really, I appreciate it.” Flannery quickly responded. “So you’re a wolf…” Flora was interested in her for that reason. Flannery nodded. “Wow I really love your kind…” Flora smiled and then frowned, “But there are hardly any nice wolves out there.” Flannery remained quiet and then finally replied, “I know right? Everyone is just so mean.” Flora nodded a little and then looked at Flannery, “But you’re nice…” Flannery looked away as tears began forming in her eyes, “I try to be. But always takes advantage of me all the time.” “Don’t cry its okay.” Flora ran her small paws through Flannery’s fur. Flannery liked her, she was nice, caring, and they were the same age. “Are you tired?” Flora smiled. Flannery nodded and followed Flora to a small room with a large window. “Here you go, if you need anything just let me know okay?” Flora left to her own bedroom. Flannery ate the rabbit and then went to sleep.

Allue and the rest of the group continued down the grassland headed towards the river. The sun had just set and the moon shed the only light on the landscape. “So, any idea how far off we are?” Alex continued to complain. He was ignored by the others because there were more important things to worry about. A few wolves were seen hanging around the outskirts of the forest so Allue figured there’d be a camp site somewhere; knowing this however, she ignored it and kept it to herself. “Not much further now…” Allue was interrupted by the site of camp fires inside of a gigantic enclosure full of large tents. A red flag that contained a black wolf paw encircled in white flew over it; the flag of Eucadia. “Okay guys, nice and quiet…” Allue ordered slowly moving around the large enclosure. Tatyanna, one of Orianna’s sisters, followed further behind. Without warning a pair of jaws clamped around her neck and shoved her into the ground. “Don’t you move,” The Eucadian guard whispered spitefully, “or I’ll kill you.” Tatyanna knew that if she didn’t warn the group, they’d be captured. Desperately, she tore loose of the guard’s grip and cried out, “Look out!” The Eucadian guard grabbed her neck again. Allue swung around and immediately realized that they had been detected. “Let her go!” Allue slowly inched toward the guard who, as she got closer, squeezed tighter on Tatyanna’s neck. “Wait…” Tatyanna cried out desperately as more Eucadian wolves appeared from the shadows of the night. “Well the reports don’t lie huh?” the leader of the unit laughed walking towards the group. “Back off or I’ll…” Allue growled producing her claws. “You’ll what?” the leader smiled maliciously at them, “you’re outnumbered!” Allue backed off a bit. “Now this is what’s going to happen…” The leader explained to them only to be interrupted by Allue’s oldest puppy, Aston, who attempted to protect his mother. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen!” He barked, running at him. At Aston’s poor attempt to grab the leader’s neck, one of the other wolves caught Aston’s throat with its claws forcing him to the ground and blood from his neck. “Aston!” his mother cried in distress. Aston tried to get up but he was too weak from losing too much blood too fast. Allue became furious and attacked the wolf that killed her son. Allue ran quickly through the darkness and grabbed the guard’s throat knocking him to the ground. Furiously, she dug her claws into its chest and tor one of its ribs out. The guard howled in pain as she released him and headed for the next one. The Unit of guards tried to stop her, but she was too fast. Blood was everywhere and half of the unit had been killed by her already. The remaining were scared and tried to run, but none of them got away. One by one, Allue single-handedly ripped the unit apart until there was only the leader left alive. Terrified by Allue’s fury, the leader slowly backed away. He didn’t know where she was or what she was going to do with him. “Where are you!?” He cried in fear, it was dark and he couldn’t see a thing. Then out of nowhere she came down on him knocking the leader on his back and Allue only an inch from his face, “Now,” Allue said furiously, “What’s going to happen?!” The leader was terrified of her. “Please,” He pleaded, “Don’t kill me…” From far off, the group watched amazed by her speed. “That’s a shame…” she said calmly. She prepared to slash the leader’s neck before two lions shot out from the forest and seized the leader by the neck. The other lion tore its large claws through Allue’s side, ripping a large hole in her side. Allue fell to the ground; Blood rushing from her critical wound and her fury-rush quickly deteriorating. She backed away knowing that she was too badly injured to be able to fight off two lions simultaneously. The leader, desperately trying to escape, fought back viciously with no success. He attracted the attention of both lions that, without issue, tore him apart. Allue, weakened by the loss of blood, ordered the group to continue on around the base. “I’ll be there soon…” She cried weakly after them. The group ran quickly down the hill and around the base to a safe distance on the other side. Allue escaped successfully from the two lions and she fought to carry herself where the group had assembled. Each step she took, each heart beat, made her weaker until she could barely stand. Halfway to the safe point her hind legs collapsed. Allue couldn’t feel her entire tail-end as a result of massive blood loss. “Come on!” she attempted to push herself but it was no use. Blood streamed from the massive wound to the ground where it collected in a shallow, red puddle. She knew that there was no way she would survive. In a final act of desperation, Allue threw her head back and cried out a distressed howl. Brianna’s ears picked up this up from a distance. She faced Allue’s direction and could only wait. “I’m sorry…” Brianna whispered to herself knowing there was no way she could help her. Eventually Allue became light-headed; she laid down and licked the blood from the massive wound in order to try and stop the blood but it was no use. She thought about the safety of the rest of the group she cared for and her puppies and how she would never see them mature. Allue laid down silently in the grass until she finally gave up her last breath.  “Where is she?” Ty looked in Allue’s direction but didn’t see any sign of her. Brianna knew that there was no way that Allue could’ve survived, “I don’t think she’s coming…” she whispered to Jasmine who was breathless the entire time “We should just go on.” “But what if she’s…” Ty argued in her defense but Brianna quickly snapped back, “Listen; there’s no way she could have survived that!” tears gathered around her eyes, “We should just go…” The group sat quietly in a circle; Allue’s puppies, not realizing what happened, ran around and played happily in the grass. “Yeah, let’s just go.” Alex said getting up and heading toward the river. Soon everybody followed keeping their distress and sadness to themselves.

   It was midnight when Flora’s TV woke Flannery up. She walked tiredly into the living room to see Flora sleeping on the couch. The news was on and talked mostly about the war in Caniridia. From the looks of it, Flannery could tell that the foxes had taken severe damage to their defenses but they surprisingly held on. Flannery continued on into the kitchen where she figured she’d get something to eat. Staring into the refrigerator, Flannery was mostly repulsed by the “fox food” she had in there so she closed the door and headed back to the bedroom where she slept. As Flannery walked down the small corridor on the second floor towards her room, a light flashed through the window causing her to freeze in her steps. She could her movement outside, but who could it be? She lightly stepped down the hall toward the window where she peeked out; nothing. “Huh…” she thought to herself as she continued toward her room. All of a sudden, she heard a loud crashed. Flannery whipped around to face a lion three times her size. She backed up slowly until she was up against a wall. “Let go of me!!” Flannery glimpsed down the balcony where she saw a lioness holding Flora down while another searched the house. Flannery was terrified. She had never seen such a large animal in real life before. The lion seized Flannery by the neck and carried her down the stair with the others. “I found a wolf,” The lion said dropping Flannery to the ground. “Nice job, Timmy,” The female smiled, her paw pressing harder against flora’s back, “Looks like we’re in business.” “It’d be great if we were after a fox and a wolf wouldn’t it Lexi? But we’re not, so let’s just find what we came for and get the hell out of here.” The other male lion said opening shelves and drawers. “Can we kill them?” Lexi asked gently massaging Flora’s neck, “So they can’t tell?” The larger male lion ignored her. “That would be a no…” She said quietly. “We need ‘em alive Lexi.” The larger male lion growled. “Flax, you’re no fun.” Lexi smiled looking over at Flannery who was frozen with fear. “Awww what’s the matter?” She gave a sarcastic look of compassion. Flannery backed away. “Don’t worry, I can’t hurt you…” She said glancing at Flax, the larger male lion. “Grow up will ya?” Flax snapped at Lexi, “And will you get your lazy a*s to work please?” Lexi frowned, “Why don’t you make Red do it?” She whined looking over at the smaller male lion. “Because I asked you to do it!” Flax roared at Lexi, “I’m getting fed up with you!” “Fine, Fine.” She mumbled helping Flax find whatever it was they were looking for. Flora inched her way over by a window and motioned for Flannery to follow. The three lions: Lexi, Flax, and Red, were too busy searching to notice Flannery and Flora climbing out the first story window. When they reached the outside Flora ran east. “Follow me!” She cried from a distance. Flannery and Flora ran for a few miles before the stopped and rested. “What was that all about?” Flannery asked catching her breath. “It’s a long story….” Flora replied quietly looking down and away. “It’s okay o we have…” Flannery was interrupted be Lexi who pounced out of the trees and seized Flannery by her neck. “Gotcha you little rat!” She laughed sadistically, “You thought you could get away didn’t ya? But you leave behind such an obvious trail!” Flora, thinking quickly, picked up a sharp stick and pointed it at Lexi, “Let her go or I’ll shove this spear down your throat!” The lioness laughed, “That looks like a stick to me!” Lexi’s heavy paws painfully bent Flannery’s spine into an uncomfortable position causing her to cry in pain. “Let her go!” Flora warned once more walking closer to the lioness that was almost four times her size. “You really want to die sweet heart?” Lexi stepped closer to Flora and released Flannery from the painful grip. Flora stood her ground against the five-hundred pound lion. “I’m not afraid of you!” Flora snapped back. “Okay then…” Lexi smiled spitefully and, from each of her paws, emerged five two-inch long claws that could easily rip through Flora’s flesh. Without warning, Lexi charged Flora and swiped an inch of claw into her side. Flora cried in pain as she dropped the sharp stick she carried and grasped her side. “You scared now?” Lexi grinned priming herself for another charge. Flannery watched in horror at the scene and she knew that if she didn’t help Flora out, the lioness would rip her to shreds. Quickly, Flannery grabbed the sharpened stick in her mouth and ran behind Lexi. Swiftly, Flannery hopped onto Lexi’s back and jammed the sharpened stick down as far as she could between Lexi’s shoulder blades. Lexi threw Flannery off her back and grabbed on to the stick. Desperately, she tried to pull it out, but it was in too deep. “Oh, you’re gonna get it now…” Lexi bared her teeth in pain as she charged at Flannery who stood behind a tall tree root. “Come and get it…” Flannery thought to herself. As Lexi closed in, Flannery stepped aside allowing Lexi to flip over the tall tree root and land on her back which forced the sharpened stick to impale her. The stick ruptured her spine, pierced her heart, and stuck out the other side causing Lexi to die almost immediately. Flannery ran back to Flora who was amazed at Flannery’s abilities. “Are you alright?” Flannery asked licking the blood off of Flora’s wounds. Flora looked deep into Flannery’s eyes, “God I love you…” at that instant she grabbed her face and forced her muzzle together with Flannery’s. As they both sat making out, Flannery forgot about Terry. Right now, she sat making out with someone she loved and loved her. For the first time in a while, she experienced happiness. But mostly for the first time since Terry broke her heart, she fell in love.

“Heather? Heather! Heatherrrr!” a persistent voice cried from behind Heather’s door. Lazily, Heather slid out of bed, went to the door, and opened it. “Yes Katie, What is it?” Heather answered tiredly to her calls. Katie, a young, white lioness with a lot of energy looked into heather’s eyes, “Are you tired?” Heather gently nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were back?!” Katie whined. Heather blinked, “I just got back yesterday… What are you doing here so late anyway?” Katie thought for a moment, “I need a place to stay tonight. My mom kicked me out of the house.” Heather’s face lit up, “Geez girl what did you do?” “I’d rather NOT tell you…” She whispered walking into Heather’s house. Katie caught sight of the sleeping Vixen on the couch. “Eeeew! What is that?!” She cried pointing at the small fox. “Calm down,” Heather replied gently petting the small vixen, “It’s a baby fox.” Katie looked disgustedly at it, “Why’d you bring that thing here?” Heather frowned at her, “I’m can’t just leave her out there to die!” Katie looked closer at it, “Why not?” Heather looked nastily at Katie, “If you want a nice warm place to sleep, Katie, I suggest that you get used to the fox.” Katie smiled convincingly, “I’m just kidding, you know I’m kidding with you heather!” “Yea I know you are.” Heather replied getting up, “I’m going to catch us a midnight snack, Watch her for me will ya?” “Sure thing.” Katie quickly replied turning on the TV. Minutes passed and Heather was still out looking for food. Katie sat on the couch flipping through channels when she felt something small, cold, and wet brush against her. She quickly turned to see the small vixen sniffing her out. The fox gently brushed its muzzle against Katie’s fur in an attempt to get attention. Katie gently pushed it away, “Yea, you sit there and I’ll sit here, k?” The fox ignored Katie and continued on sniffing her. “Well I guess you’re kinda cute...” Katie whispered playfully as she pat the vixen gently on the back.

The group traveled miles on before the finally reached the river on the horizon. It was nearly pitch dark with only the moon lighting the way. Sitting on the bank of the river, they finally realized how wide the river really was. “God that’s a long way across…” Alex gasped looking across. “Think about this,” Ty explained, “Once we cross that river, we’ll be home free! We can relax and stop running around hiding from wolves that are trying to kill us.” He continued, “And most of all, we can play PS all day and night!” The two were excited by the thought of relaxing after days of running and hiding. “Sure, but you know it’ll be another fifteen miles before we reach home” Jasmine smiled. Alex and Ty frowned simultaneously, “You ruin everything you know that?” “Sorry…” She smiled innocently. Brianna sat by herself on the river bank thinking about Allue. She had known her all her life and in a split second, she was gone. “Hey, are you alright?” Angel sat next to her. She didn’t reply. Angel rested her head on Brianna’s shoulder, “I know you’re sad, I am too, but there was nothing much we could have or can do now.” Brianna looked away, “I know but…” she paused. “But what?” Angel sat up. “I could have helped her I mean…I…I could have saved her…” Brianna began to tear up. Angel gently stroked Brianna’s fur, “It’s not your fault Brianna, don’t blame yourself. She was Trying to protect us all.” Brianna ignored her. “So how are we going to get across?” Jasmine wondered out loud pawing the water. “Can’t we just swim across?” Alex responded laying down. Jasmine observed the river, “That’d work if the current weren’t so strong and if we didn’t have nine puppies who CANT swim.” Alex shrugged, “Just an idea.” “How about we swim with the current? You know, so we can get across faster with less effort?” Savanna suggested nervously. “That’s a great idea!” Ty cried sarcastically, “I got another one… How about YOU go first?” Savanna looked away embarrassed. “Don’t listen to him savanna that was a great idea.” Jasmine objected, “How about you Ty? Any ideas?” He smiled, “As a matter of fact I do. You see, I was thinking that we should follow the river upstream ‘till we reach a slow, shallow crossing.” “That would be safer…” Jasmine thought out loud. “Awww…more walking?” Alex moaned staggering to his feet. “Would you rather drown in the current?!” Ty snarled at Alex. “No…” Alex responded, “I guess not.” “Well it’s up the river then!” Ty exclaimed leading the way.

Terry sat alone in her house watching the news. Usually she and Flannery would sit and watch TV together but tonight was different. She sighed looking at the empty seat next to her. “Why would I do that?” She contemplated to herself, “She’s just a puppy…” Terry tried her best to make her decision seem legitimate but it was no use. She knew she was wrong for kicking Flannery out. She knew that she shouldn’t have yelled at her like that. Through it all, she wondered where Flannery was now. Scary thoughts of where she might be flashed continuously in her mind. “I hope she’s okay…” Terry thought out loud. Meanwhile, Flora and Flannery hiked up the mountain headed for Flora’s summit house. “Geez girl how many houses do you have!” Flannery exclaimed. “Three, but they’re my mother’s houses. She left them to me when…when she died.” Flannery became curious but she tried her best not to ask Flora about her mother with no success. “Oh…” She replied, “How did she die?” Flora was quiet for a moment, “She was killed in a raid.” Before Flannery could react, Flora continued, “My Father was a spy for Caniridia; he was assigned with the task of spying on the lion’s military…” She continued, “His partner secretly worked against his organization so he sold my father out.” She gapped. “And…They killed him?” Flannery’s curiosity invaded. “Eventually, after they tortured him and got all he knew from him, they went after my mother who, they thought, was in the whole espionage game too so they raided our small village looking for her.” Flora glanced behind her, “She told me to leave the village and hide out in the cottage; she told me that she’d meet me there.” Flora stopped once more, “She left and never came back.” “Is that why the lions raided the cottage back there?” Flannery speculated. Flora nodded. “Any idea what they were looking for?” Flannery continued to question. “No idea.” Flora replied. They continued through the dense forest until they reached a small gravel pathway. “It’s up here.” Flora announced walking up the pathway. Flannery followed close by. The door creaked eerily as Flora slid it open and switched on the lights. “Just how she left it…” She sighed as she continued in. Flannery was stunned by her statement, “So, Flora, how long ago did all this spying and killing happen?” She thought for a moment, “I don’t know, about three or four weeks ago maybe.” Flannery froze, “WHAT?!” “Yeah about a month ago.” Flora repeated returning to the main room, “Why?” Flannery was scared, surprised, and confused, “I don’t know Flora that wasn’t too long ago…” Flora quickly responded, “Right, that’s way the lions were searching around; I know I should have told you earlier but I didn’t want to scare…” Flannery interrupted, “So are we safe here or what?” She looked around nervously. Flora shrugged, “The last house we were in was supposed to be a safe house and… well… that wasn’t very safe…” Flannery was terrified. Not only was she afraid of the situation, but she had an extreme fear of lions. “Oh… so what are the chances that the lions would…come here?” Flora thought to herself for a while before answering, “You know, that’s a good question.”

It was a little passed midnight and heather still had not returned. “Where are you?” Katie questioned to herself as she gently played with the sleeping vixen’s ears. Almost immediately after she thought that, the door swung open revealing exhausted Heather. “So I’m assuming you either caught one great big deer and you can’t bring it inside or you didn’t bring anything back.” Katie mumbled. “There’s nothing out there Kate…” She responded breathing heavily. Katie was disappointed by the news. “What do you mean there’s nothing!” Heather countered slowly, “There…is…no…more…deer.” Katie frowned, “Well I got that part! But I want to know why there aren’t any… there’s usually so many around here.” Heather sat down on the couch, “The wolves probably scared them off. How’s Victoria?” Katie glanced at the small vixen that slept peacefully next to her, “She’s fine.”  “Good, so where are you planning to sleep?” Heather asked digging through the refrigerator. Katie ignored her. “Did you hear me?” Heather called out from the kitchen. “I don’t know okay! I’m Hungry!” Katie roared back. Heather counteracted calmly, “Well if you’re that hungry, I suggest you go out and find your own food then.” Katie knew she was terrified of the dark so she quickly denied. “Okay then, Wait until I find some food and then I’ll feed you. OKAY? Katie nodded, “Okay…” Heather smiled, “Good, so you can sleep on the couch and it’s leftovers for dinner.” “Great…” Katie muttered.

The night grew old as the group reached a large bridge that crossed the river to the other side. “See! Easier than I thought!” Ty cried in excitement, “I was right!” Jasmine smiled, “Well I’m impressed…Now let’s get across this thing quickly, who knows how old this thing might be.” The group started across the bridge when a small voice called out to them. “Stop right there!” Everyone froze in their tracks. Out of the shadows came a small, black and white border collie female about Ty’s age. “Who are you?!” she cried out attempting to intimidate them. “I…uh…we…uh…we’re from…we’re from Veridia…” Ty stammered, hypnotized by her beauty. “Wait…you’re all from Veridia too?” The collie puppy paused. “Right, we came from the eastern side…” Jasmine added. The Border collie turned around and called out, “Red! Hey Red!” A wolf from the other side came out of the forest. “What Aerial?” He mumbled walking towards her. He caught sight of the rest of the group and froze. “They’re from Veridia, its okay.” Aerial the collie relieved. “Oh…” Red was also relieved, “Well let them in!” Aerial rolled her eyes, “That’s what I was about to do!” Aerial went back to the other side with the group following. On the other side of the bridge, the familiar sight of Veridia came into view. “This is the West side of Veridia so you probably won’t recognize this place.” Aerial announced leading them to an empty cabin. “So about the east…” Jasmine started. “The east had to evacuate. Eucadia invaded a couple days ago.” Arial responded quietly. “Do you know where they went?” Jasmine continued to question. She was worried about her mother. “I’m sure they’re fine.” Aerial assured as they reached the front of a large collection of cabins. “I know this is kind of short notice but you can sleep here if you want. The gate closes soon and once they do no one can come in or out.” Aerial announced, “If you need anything, I’ll be down by the bridge.” Ty waited until Aerial left before he cried out to Alex, “Did you see her?! She’s HOT!” Alex nodded tiredly, “Yeah I guess.” The group organized into the cabins and in an instant, they all fell asleep.

The next morning, the group slept in except Angel who was up and about exploring. She walked all around the edge of the river and to the bridge where, for the first time she caught sight of a small group of attractive Veridian guards. She stopped and stared, captivated by them. “Hey…” She stopped. From behind a Veridian guard caught sight of her. “I haven’t seen you around her… are you new?” Angel turned around slowly “Well actually I’m from…” She froze. The Veridian guard was older than her and a bit larger but Angel felt an immediate attraction to him. “I-I-I’m from th-the eastern s-s-side…” She stuttered. Being in the presence of the large wolf aroused her and made her nervous. “I’m Angel…By the way…” She whispered looking thoroughly at him. He smiled, “I’m Adam.” They both stood in an awkward silence for a while just looking at each other. “You are the cutest girl I have ever seen…” He smiled gently stroking her hair. Angel blushed, “Awww thank you…” Back at the Cabins, Alex was second to wake up. He left and immediately, from a distance, caught sight of the girl he liked with the guy she loved. His heart dropped. He watched as they laughed and flirted on and on until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Alex turned the other way and headed down a narrow pathway. He thought about her and him and how, he figured, they’d never be together. “She didn’t like me anyway…” He repeated to himself trying to ease the pain. He was so dizzy with thoughts that he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going; this causing him to run into a Veridian guard. “Oh sorry about that…” Alex quickly apologized but choked. “Oh it’s okay…” The Veridian guard replied. He seemed like a puppy slightly smaller than Alex with chocolate brown fur. The guard looked at Alex and smiled, “Hey I’ve never seen you around here before! Are you new here?” Alex smiled back, “Actually no, I’m from the eastern side…” The guard’s face lit up, “Oh me too! By the way I’m Baron.” Baron, who was a bit younger than Alex, lived in Eastern Veridia before the Eucadians invaded. Alex looked away, “Well it’s nice to meet you.” Baron immediately noticed Alex’s change in expression. “Is there something wrong?” Baron questioned curiously sitting closer to him. Alex thought for a moment, “Have you every…liked somebody and then they ended up…not liking you back?” Baron looked away, “Yeah that happens to me a lot.” Alex’s face changed, “Really?” Baron nodded. “Yeah it sucks. I liked her a lot and then she goes and…” Alex stopped. Baron looked away slowly, “I liked some of the guards…but they just make fun of me…” Alex looked back at him, “Why?” Baron looked down, “I-I’m gay…” Alex looked at him surprised, “Seriously?” Baron nodded slowly. “Why? There’s nothing wrong with being…” Alex paused.  Baron looked back up at Alex, “Th…There’s not?” Alex looked away, “Course not…” Baron smiled, “Thanks…” “No problem…Maybe we can hang out sometime?” Alex stuttered trying to kill the conversation. “Okay cool sounds fun!” Baron responded excitedly. “Hey Baron! Shift’s over!” a voice called out from a distance. “Oh…I got to go…” Baron said quietly. “Hey cool I’m at the cabins near the bridge.” Alex informed Baron. “Okay then, I’ll see you soon.” Baron smiled and then left towards the Guard house. Alex stood there by himself thinking about him. “He’s cute…” He thought to himself as he continued his walk.

The Afternoon came around when Ty finally woke up. He floated around the base hanging out with the Veridian guards and just being himself. During his tour, Ty caught sight of Aerial relaxing on the bridge by herself and he figured he’d take the opportunity to finally talk to her. “Hey what’s up?” He cried out softly as he approached her. Aerial turned around, “Oh hey I remember you…” She smiled, “Ty right?” He nodded. “Well it’s nice to meet you! How was your night?” Ty tried to control his excitement, “It was nice and comfortable, How was yours?” Aerial looked away, “Well it sucked to be honest.” “Oh sorry about that…” Ty looked the opposite way. “No, no it’s alright; that wouldn’t be the first…” He laughed to himself. “So, Ty, You guys came from Veridia?” She inched closer to him. “Yeah we just left Caniridia though…” He answered. Aerial’s was surprised, “Caniridia? Wasn’t that place just bombed?” Ty nodded. He proceeded to telling her about their visit and eventual escape from the city. “Wow that must’ve been scary!” Aerial exclaimed. “Not really…” Ty tried to make himself look good. “Man I would’ve!” Aerial cried, “It’s probably cause you’re a wolf.” Ty looked at her, “What do you mean?” Aerial thought out loud, “Wolves are brave. They have to be.” Ty laughed, “What are you saying you’re not a wolf?” She nodded, “I’m not a wolf.” Ty stopped laughing, “What?” “I’m not a wolf, I’m a dog.” She repeated. “Well you’re definitely a pretty girl…” Ty countered with success. Aerial spun around and looked at him, “You think I’m…pretty?” Ty nodded, “Yeah why?” Aerial looked away, “Nothing, it’s just that no one wants to bother with me because I’m not a wolf you know? I always get the crappiest jobs; I eat whatever the Guards don’t...” She paused. Ty slid closer to her, “Screw them, they’re idiots.” Aerial smiled, “Yeah, I know.” “Hey Aerial…uh…do you know where red went?” Baron nervously asked coming from across the bridge. She frowned, “No, Baron, I don’t know.” “Okay sorry…” He whispered walking away. “Who’s that?” Ty asked curiously. Aerial rolled her eyes, “That’s Baron, don’t worry about him.” Aerial smiled walking off with Ty following.

Jasmine sat alone with Brianna planning their next move. “We can’t stay here.” Jasmine uttered staring out the window, “The Eucadians are bound to invade any time now.” Brianna glanced at her, “Where do you suppose we go? You heard Aerial; east Veridia was invaded days ago…” Jasmine looked away, “Yeah I know… I just hope my mother’s okay…” “She’ll be fine,” Brianna assured, “She probably left with the others.” Jasmine wanted to believe this but she couldn’t help but think of the worst possible scenario. “What if… What if she didn’t leave?” Jasmine suggested anxiously. Brianna had no idea what to tell her. “I don’t know…” she whispered. “Well I’m going to find out.” Jasmine announced heading for the door. Brianna glanced her way, “Where do you plan to look?” Jasmine stopped. She had not even the slightest idea of where to even start. “I don’t know.” She sighed. Brianna got up, “I’ll come with you. It’d be a good idea to see what the guards know.” Jasmine and Brianna progressed towards the headquarters where several guards were stationed. “Look pretty, and the males will tell you everything.” Brianna smiled as they entered the large building. Hundreds of guards, predominantly male, sat around and worked around the clock to protect the small region of Western Veridia however seeing the two females enter, they all paused. “Awkward…” Jasmine whispered to Brianna who didn’t appear worried at all. “Just follow my lead.” She quietly responded. “Does anyone here have any idea about where the Eastern Veridians may have evacuated?” Brianna called out looking around. “I know! I know!” Baron cried out from a distance. The other wolves rolled their eyes. Brianna and Jasmine walked towards him, “So you know where they went?” Jasmine questioned almost excitedly. Baron nodded thrillingly, “Yeah they headed south to the mainland.” Brianna and Jasmine were puzzled. “The mainland? What mainland?” Jasmine responded. She was frustrated. “You don’t know about the Veridian Mainland?” Baron laughed, “What kind of Veridian are you?!” Jasmine became angry, grabbed his throat between her claws, and looked him gravely in the eyes. “I’m not playing with you!” She growled at him. Baron was intimidated and embarrassed as the rest of the males watched on. “You better tell her Baron!” a guard shouted from the large crowd causing them to laugh and tease him. “Ocean Rift Valley…” he whispered frightened by Jasmine’s solemnity, “Th-the Veridian Mainland is where all Veridians were supposed to evacuate to when the Eucadians invaded…” “Why didn’t the west go to the mainland?” Brianna interrogated calmly. Baron looked up at Jasmine, “We were cut off… The Eucadians have us surrounded.” Her face lit up, “What! Surrounded?!”Baron nodded. Jasmine looked at Brianna, “What should we do?” She thought for a while, “How do you get to the mainland?” She asked Baron kindly.  Baron, Still intimidated, looked at her wildly, “Are you crazy!? The Eucadians’ll kill you!” “That would be our problem.” She responded critically. “Okay well, you have to head south until you reach the tributary where…” He glanced at Jasmine, “Where the river leads into a valley. Once you get there, you have to continue through the valley and up the top of Rift Mountain… Where Veridian Mainland is.” Jasmine released her grasp on him, “How far is it?” Baron shrugged, “I don’t know, it’s pretty far though and there’s a lot of Eucadians patrolling.” He continued, “It’s not safe to go alone…” “Maybe the west should come too. The more of us, the better the chances are that we’ll make it.” Brianna suggested to Jasmine. She nodded, “Why don’t you guys come too?” she cried out to the group who responded in an obviously negative way. “They have us outnumbered!” one guard shouted, “They’ll kill us all!” Another one added. “Listen! The more of us traveling together means the better our chances are of getting to the mainland with as few casualties as possible!” Brianna supported Jasmine with great success. “She may be right…” One guard explained to the rest of the crowd, “I mean if we stay here the Eucadians will overpower us. But if we sneak around the outposts, we might have a chance.” He, the largest and apparent leader of Western Veridia, a large gray wolf, supported the idea of migrating and announced his decision to the rest. Soon, the entire crowd was in favor of relocating to the mainland. “I’ll find the others,” jasmine suggested to Brianna, “Okay, I’ll find out when they’re going to start leaving and I’ll let you know.” She replied heading toward the leader. This was the first time in days that West Veridia decided to leave the security of their outpost and enter the unpromising, dangerous wilderness headed for the safe protection of the Veridian army. All they had to do was migrate miles and miles with hundreds of civilians, including females and their children, with the protection of only a few young male guards. Although it sounded like a perfect plan, it was perhaps the most dangerous operation any of the Veridian wolves ever participated in.

Flannery slept peacefully on the couch. The fear of the invading lions vanished from her as her exhaustion took over. Flora watched the news attentively. “Caniridia continues to suffer from Brutal attacks from all sides. The Caniridian foxes have been pushed so far back that there is no possible way they can recover.  The poor, sick, and injured foxes don’t stand a chance against the brutal tactics of the Eucadian army and the vicious waves of Imperial infantry. The lions have obtained a considerable amount of land, resources, and infantry. This is due in part of their large army of female medics. As for The Eucadian wolves, the weather and time of day switched to their favor. They possess sixty-eight percent of the city of Caniridia thanks to their never-ending wave of well-trained, young, and battle-hardened wolves. Rumors of a fourth wave of bombings began to surface shortly after a brutal battle between Eucadia and the Imperial lions ended with heavy Eucadian casualties.” The newscaster went on, “If they should bomb the unsuspected enemy, Eucadia would sure gain a considerable amount of leverage against all sides, this, in turn, would give the Eucadian wolves the upper paw, and perhaps the city itself. This is Katie Price reporting live from Manchester, England, CSS news.” Flora changed the channel, “Now what exactly is Eucadia trying to accomplish? That is the question.” Another news station announced, “Not only are they playing a big roll in the war in Caniridia, but they’re also attacking nearby neighbors. Not too long ago, confirmed reports of Eucadia attacking the Native nation of Veridia and The Imperial Lion army have surfaced. The aggressive nation of Eucadia certainly has bragging rights considering their arsenal of modern weaponry. English diplomats sat down with Siberian wolves today discussing Eucadia’s aggression while, on the other side of the world, the small southern Bengal tiger nation threatened to answer Eucadia’s aggression with their very own aggression should Eucadia decide to invade the Far East.” Flora sighed, “Why can’t there just be peace in the world?” The news station went on to Eucadia’s leader, Darryl Hardy, addressing the Eucadian republic in a speech. Darryl, a large, black Eucadian wolf with an intimidating figure, a threatening glare, and a persuasive dialogue stood behind a podium and delivered a divisive speech. Behind him stood his top generals and before him, a vast crowd of supporters ranging from military members to ordinary civilians including mothers and their puppies. “It is time Eucadia took its rightful global position, at the top!” The vast crowd cheered on as he continued. “Soon, the world will realize the true might of the Eucadian army as it crushes all who stand in its way.” The speech sent shills down Flora’s spine, “We will expand. We will obtain. WE WILL SUCCEED!” the crowd was led into another round of cheer. “The time is now. As Eucadian troops rush to overtake the city of Caniridia, more rush out to suppress native Veridian and imperial lion resistance. No one stands a chance against us!” The crowd roared. “Foxes, lions, Tigers, Non-Eucadian wolves, they will all fall to the superior animal species!” The crowd went wild. Flora was horrified by the speech. She stared into the yellow eyes of Eucadia’s leader, the one responsible for the slaughter of many innocent foxes, lions, and non-Eucadian wolves, the one who sparked the war in Caniridia. “And he refuses to stop at Caniridia.” The newscaster continued on. “Intelligence suggests a planned invasion of the Imperial Lion city of Chernova, whatever is left of Native Veridia and even Siberia, home to the Siberian wolves. English officials fear of a massive campaign against England as a result of centuries of rivalry between the two.” The news caster concluded, “Whatever Eucadian leader Darryl Hardy has in mind, it is certain that any measures taken to stop him will have to be extremely well planned and organized.” Flora turned off the TV. She sat quietly in the living room thinking about what was going on. The world was in conflict because of The Eucadian republic which she lived. Flora knew that the foxes that lived in small villages around Eucadia would soon be massacred by the Eucadian military. She knew that Flannery and her weren’t really safe there in her summit home. Flora knew that she and Flannery had to escape.

The leader of Western Veridia, Pryce, sat down with his head guards to discuss their plan. “We should leave at night,” One of the guards suggested, “That way we’ll have the darkness to cover us.” Pryce nodded, “So it’s settled then, tomorrow night at midnight we’ll make the trip to the Mainland. All agreed and left to prepare themselves and their families for the long journey. Out side, Jasmine hurried to retrieve the group and inform them of the planned movement. “Ty wait up!” Jasmine cried out running after him, “Have you seen Alex and Savanna?” “Alex is sleep and Savanna took Allue’s puppies for a walk.”  Ty sighed. Jasmine observed him, “What’s the matter with you?” Ty shrugged, “Nothing. So why are you looking for them?” “Right, West Veridia is going to the mainland where the rest of the Veridians evacuated too.” Jasmine explained, “According to Brianna, they’re leaving tomorrow at midnight and I want to make sure we’re not holding them behind.” Ty nodded. “If you see them anywhere just tell them what I said and to get ready.” Jasmine ended running back to the head quarters. “So tomorrow we’ll spend the day stocking up on food?” Brianna verified. Pryce nodded, “Then we’ll pack up and move out when it hits midnight.” “Okay.” Brianna turned away and left. “So what are we going to need to bring with us?” Pryce’s wife daisy asked. Daisy, a large female wolf, had snow white fur all over and shiny silver eyes. She was to take care of the civilians during the long journey. Pryce shrugged, “I don’t know sweetheart that’s your job.” She smiled, “Okay then, but remember this moment.” The entire outpost prepared all night for the long journey ahead of them. Females packed food, water, and readied their children. The guards learned convey maneuvers in order to adequately protect the civilians in the case of an attack. The group readied themselves too. Brianna and Jasmine took care of Allue’s nine puppies while Alex and Ty retrieved water. Savanna helped either of them. As the night grew old, the Outpost grew ready. Everyone was packed and ready to go sooner than Pryce and his generals had anticipated. “Okay everybody get some rest and we’ll depart from here tomorrow.” He addressed the crowd for the last time before the migration. With that, everybody dispersed and went into their own homes to rest. Pryce, however, couldn’t sleep. He went over every possible outcome that could happen and he worried about the worst. “Pryce, honey, you need to get some sleep…” Daisy suggested stroking his ears. “I know, but I can’t. What if…what if this whole thing goes wrong?” Pryce thought out loud. Daisy sat next to him, “You know it helps a great deal to think positive.” Pryce looked over to her, “Right, but as leader I have to think of all the possibilities, good or bad.” “Then focus on the good ones.” Daisy responded quickly, “We’ve been waiting for this for days now, everybody is excited!” She continued, “If they see you worrying, then they’ll worry. If they worry, morale will be low and as a result it would weaken our defenses. Even the smallest Eucadian attack would crush us.” “We can’t have that…” Pryce mumbled to himself. “Right. So get some rest and remember, think positive.” Daisy kissed Pryce gently on the muzzle, “Goodnight.” Pryce sat alone remembering what Daisy had told him. “Think positive…” he repeated to himself as he dozed off. Outside in the cool night Alex, Ty, and Baron sat watching the stars. “They’re pretty…” Baron was in awe. Ty looked at him, “You think the sky is pretty?” Baron nodded, “Yeah, I mean think about what might be out there… When I was a puppy, my mother and I would just lay in the grass for hours thinking about stuff.” Ty glanced over to Alex and whispered, “What the hell is he talking about?” Alex shrugged. “So what’s your name?” Baron asked Ty. “Ty,” Ty replied. “That’s a nice name. It kind of fits you! I wish I had a pretty name like that…” Ty quickly sat up, “Dude! Are you gay?!” Baron’s eyes widened, “How’d you know?” Ty froze. Baron laid back down and continued looking at the stars. “So you guys ready for the long journey tomorrow?” Baron continued, “It was all Jasmine’s idea… she’s kind of mean…” He muttered. “Well once you get to know her she’s really not that bad.” Alex replied smiling. “I just want to go to sleep.” Ty added lying back down, “I’m so sick of walking, I can throw up right now!” Baron laughed, “Try not to think about it because tomorrow is going to be one long walk.” Ty rolled his eyes, “Thanks for that.” Savanna came running from the cabin to meet the three of them. “Um…Brianna says that…you guys should get some sleep…” She informed nervously. Baron sat up and looked at her, “Are you shy?” Savanna looked away in embarrassment, “I-I-I don’t think so.” “Yes she is!” Alex quickly shouted. Baron looked her passionately in the eyes, “its okay you don’t have to be afraid to talk to everybody; you have a really pretty voice.” Savanna’s face turned red and she smiled slightly, “Thank you…” She then returned to the cabin. “Wow, you made Savanna smile.” Ty mumbled, “That’s a first.” Baron shrugged, “I don’t know I make girls feel better…” Ty frowned, “I thought you were gay…” Alex quickly changed the subject, “So, uh, lets go and uh…sleep?” Ty began to walk towards the cabin, “Fine.” Baron watched him until he reached his house, “I don’t think he likes me…” Alex glanced at him, “What? No! It takes a while to get used to Ty, Don’t mind him.”   

Heather was awakened by the phone ringing. “Hello…” she answered wearily. “Hello? Heather is this you?” A lion on the other side responded. “I think so…” Heather slowly replied sitting down, “Who’s this?” “This is HQ; we need you to come in. There’s an important mission that needs you.” Heather groaned, “Can’t it wait? I’m Exhausted…” “No Heather, you need to come in NOW!” the lion on the other side roared. “Okay, okay keep your panties on…” Heather replied hanging up the phone. She slid out of bed and walked over towards Katie. “Wake up Katie…” She sighed shaking her vigorously. “What, what?” Katie responded quietly. “I need you to watch Victoria for a while. Duty calls.” Heather informed Katie of the situation. “Whatever…okay.” Katie sleepily replied and turned back over. Heather ran through the arm night toward Chernova, The imperialist lion city. She arrived at the HQ moments later drained. “Glad you could make it.” A young male lion a bit older than her greeted Heather at the door. “Yeah, yeah what do you need?” She sat down. The lion switched on a projector. We need you to infiltrate this outpost in search of our missing scout, Eve. “Eve?” Heather repeated to him. “Yes eve; we sent her out to spy on the Eucadian outpost because we feared that it contained a research facility in which prisoners of war are cruelly experimented on.” Heather was shocked, “What type of experiments?” The lion looked away, “Anything too horrible to imagine. Tracey, another scout such as yourself, was captured and taken to a biological research facility.” He paused, “There, they injected her with several lethal diseases in order to study firsthand the effects they’d have on the enemy.” Heather turned cold. The lion continued. “After she survived the several lethal diseases and viral infections, they dissected her, Alive, with no anesthetics to observe the effects the diseases had on her vital organs.” Heather was almost in tears. “But they’ve done way worse experiments, another one of our spies were killed at the same place. They drained her blood all over the floor while she as still conscience. Why? Just because.” Heather couldn’t hear anymore, “So what do you need me to do?” The lion faced her, “If intelligence is correct and there’s an experiment facility this close to us…” he paused, “More of us will be victims of the Experiment camps. So, I need you to go in and confirm. Heather looked away, “what if I’m captured?” The male lion was silent. Heather nodded, “When do you need me to go?” “In about an hour or so before the morning arrives.” He gazed outside the window, “We’re sending two infantry units out tomorrow morning and I don’t want them walking into a death trap.  “Okay.” Heather responded quietly and got up. She was terrified of the thought of being experimented on by the Eucadians. She walked down to the break room to eat and rest a bit before she was to go out and complete her mission. Heather thought about Razor, her partner, who had been killed by the foxes. She thought about Katie and Victoria and feared that she’d never see them again. She sat by herself in the break room eating and planning her movements. She knew that being captured wasn’t an option. Heather would rather die than to experience the fate of the two scouts she was informed about. “Time to go…” She thought sadly to herself as she finished the last of her meal.

Flora sat outside facing the capitol city of Eucadia. It was large and full of millions of wolves. She knew that a city this big would secure its perimeter which is what she happened to live on. From a distance toward the city walls, Flora noticed a large collection of Eucadian soldiers. She stared for a while before she realized what the commotion was. The two lions that raided her house had been captured. One of them, covered in blood and was dragged along, had been killed by the Eucadian guards while the other had been captured alive. He was headed for questioning and then off to the experiment camp afterwards. “They must be near…” Flora thought out loud to herself as she ran back inside to wake up Flannery. “Hey…wake up!” she cried shaking Flannery frantically. “WH-what, what what’s going on?!” Flannery quickly sat up. “Flannery I think we should get out of here.” Flora suggested glancing behind her. “Okay…where too?” Flannery questioned rubbing her eyes. Flora thought for a moment, “Northern Pacifica…” Flannery stopped, “Where?” “Pacifica… you know, the dock side city where the…” Flora started but was interrupted. “Where the lions are?” She panicked, “Why would we go there?!” “These aren’t the Imperial lions, Flannery…they’re the peaceful ones that are neutral in conflict…” Flannery sat up, “Are you sure?” “Positive.” Flora responded quickly. “Okay then… let’s go.” Flannery slid off the couch and they both headed out the door and down the mountain. “There’s bound to be patrols around here so we need to stay hidden…” Flora suggested. “I’m Eucadian so I can get us out of any trouble we get into.” Flannery added following Flora down the mountain and out the forest. They were both exposed now. Flora and Flannery walked along side the border of the city and met their first patrol halfway away from it. “You stop!” The Eucadian guard ordered. Flora hid and Flannery stopped, “Yes sir?” The guard walked up to her, “How old are you?” Flannery froze, “I’m…uh…eighteen?” The guard was too stupid to realize her small size. “Okay. What are you doing walking around out here at this hour?” The guard interrogated. “I was just headed home sir…” She looked away. “Okay well get going.” The guard finished and walked off. “Its safe now Flora…” Flannery whispered and she came from the shadows. “You’re eighteen?” Flora laughed. “Nope. That was a close one though…we should get moving.” Flannery replied walking away. The two continued heading away from the capital city towards the neutral region of Pacifica.

The morning came faster than anyone had expected. Ty, Alex, and Baron, lazed out of their cabin and walked to the HQ where Daisy prepared food for everyone. Hundreds of Veridians sat around and ate while Daisy and Pryce talked. “That was the shortest night ever…” Alex whined lying down. Ty was too tired to respond. “I’m tired too…” Baron added, “And hungry.” From the crowd, Jasmine and Brianna appeared, “Hey guys, did you get your rest?” Neither of them responded. “Oh…” Jasmine laughed, “You’d better get plenty to eat… we’re leaving early.” The three looked up simultaneously, “WHAT?!” Jasmine nodded, “Yep, Everyone’s up so we all decided to leave early.” “How early?” Baron whined looking up at her. “After we all eat.” She responded walking off. “Damn it!” Ty whined rolling over. The three of them joined the crowd and ate until the elks were gone. Afterwards, everyone lined up at the outpost gates. “Okay this is how we’re going to operate, civilians in the center and the guards on the outside. Stay alert, report suspicious activities, and use common sense.” Pryce briefed the Veridians, “Okay let’s get the hell outta here.” With that, the enormous crowd of Veridians herded out the gates and on the grassland headed south. From a distance behind them, two Eucadian scouts watched. “The Veridians are on the move.” He whispered into a radio, “They’re headed southbound along the river.” The radio responded, “Affirmative, we’ll set up ambush positions along the tree line.” The crowd had no idea what was waiting for them a few miles ahead. Pryce and Daisy headed the migration. “It’s a beautiful day…” Daisy smiled looking up at the sky. Pryce didn’t reply. He was busy with more important things. “You wanted me sir?” a small puppy with blue, black, and grey fur ran up to him. “Yes, Gail I need you to scout a few miles ahead.” He whispered to her. Gail lives up to her name, she’s West Veridia’s only scout so she was the most important tool during the migration. “Anything in particular you’re looking for sir?” Gail responded. Pryce thought for a moment, “Yes, look for tracks of some sort that would indicate the presence of some…” Gail quickly nodded, “Yes sir.” With that she ran up ahead of the group. The wind streamed through Gail’s hair a she ran miles ahead of the crow toward the tree line. She caught sight of a few wolves walking around and stopped. They looked her way and immediately caught sight of her blue fur. “You! Stop!” one of them shouted and chased after her. “Crap…” she thought to herself as she turned around and ran straight back. Ty, Alex, and Baron floated around the rear of the crowd. “How far you think we’ve got?” Ty wondered out loud. “Well I can’t see the outpost so I’d say…not that far.” Baron replied. “It sure feels like it… “Alex whined continuing on with the group. All of a sudden the crowd halted. “What’s going on?” Ty cried out to the front. Gail returned to Pryce exhausted. “Eucadians up ahead…” she breathed hard, “They followed me…” Pryce gazed up at the horizon where his worst fears had been confirmed. “AMBUSH!” He cried out causing the protective shield of guards to organize into a horizontal line in front of the rest of the civilians. “Charge!” Pryce cried out and with that the wall of Veridians advanced toward the on-rushing sea of Eucadian wolves.

The Ambush was severely underestimated; the Veridians were outnumbered greatly. The wall finally clashed into a sea of fighting. Blood, pieces of fur and cries, littered the air as Veridian forces defended their civilians. Pryce slashed away at the wall of Eucadian wolves throwing blood everywhere. He didn’t notice one of the enemy soldiers flanking him from his left. Suddenly, Pryce felt several claws tear into his left eye blinding it. He quickly countered, digging his into the chest of the flanking wolf. Blood poured from his blinded left eye but he continued to fight. The Veridian’s well practiced maneuvers forced the ambushing wolves to retreat but tried desperately to get away but the Veridian guards kept on them. “Kill them all!!” Pryce cried out charging with the others. The civilians fell back to avoid the quick fight which ended with twenty-three Veridian casualties and the entire ambushing wolves killed except one who was captured. Daisy licked the blood from Pryce’s left eye revealing the true damage. His eye was clouded white meaning he’d never see out of it again. “Is it bad?” Pryce questioned nervously as Daisy continued to treat him. “I don’t think you’ll be able to see out of it again…” She said sadly looking into his other eye. “It’s alright. I can still fight.” Pryce responded with a smile. Daisy looked sadly at him, “Are you sure you’re alright?” Pryce gently kissed her, “I’m fine.” He turned around to address the guards. “Good work everyone! We killed off every one of these filthy beasts!” the Guards all cheered. “Wait sir we got us a prisoner.” A guard announced standing over a frightened young Eucadian wolf. Pryce walked over to him, “So…How you feeling?” The frightened Eucadian wolf fell to his knees, “Please don’t kill me!” Pryce grabbed the wolf by the ears and looked it in the eyes. “If you want to live, you’ll tell me everything you know.” The frightened wolf looked back at Pryce, “I-I don’t know anything… they just told me too…” Pryce cut him off, “Well then your useless to us aren’t you?” The frightened wolf pleaded, “Please I don’t know anything! Have mercy! Please, don’t kill me!” Pryce looked the guard who had captured him in the eyes. “Put him down.” The guard grabbed the tip of the frightened wolf’s muzzle and the back of its head and swiftly twisted it until the sound of each one of its vertebrae could be heard snapping. He, along with the rest of his unit were left to rot in pools of their own blood on the lonely grassland. Pryce turned towards the south and announced, “Let’s keep moving!” the Civilians joined the guards and continued on to the mainland.        

Heather dashed full speed toward the suspected Experimental outpost as she was eager to complete this mission as quickly as possible. Miles away from the HQ, she finally caught sight of the Eucadian outpost. Searchlights, Sentinels, and patrols were visible even from miles away, “Oh god.” Heather thought to herself as she contemplated her infiltration plan. She continued on closer to the outpost to look for any possible entries that were safe. Almost immediately, she spotted an opening near an alleyway. She was confident that this entry way was safest so she took it without thinking twice. Inside Heather felt exposed. The outpost was eerily quiet and only the white lights from the buildings provided light. She treaded stealthily through it in search of incriminating evidence that would condemn the outpost for what it did, but there weren’t any in sight. The large buildings provided enough shadow to hide the colossal lioness allowing her to sneak past patrols and search lights and also allowing her to gain reconnaissance on suspected laboratories. “Come on where are you…” She thought to herself peeking into building after building and finding nothing. She reached the other end of the outpost where one last building remained. The building had a garage door open and bright white light shone from the open doors. Heather came around and pushed herself up against a wall and peeked into the warehouse. She was both sickened and amazed at what she saw. Animals from foxes to lions, horses to gazelles, occupied cages that lined the warehouse walls. The animals were in such terrible condition it was obvious that they were victims of unethical experiments headed by the Eucadian wolves. Heather paced through the warehouse observing the hurt animals. A few young wolves sat alone in the corner of their cages licking their deep wounds and gashes while others waited patiently for death. Further into the warehouse, Heather saw lions slowly dying from diseases and viral infections administered by the Eucadians. All over, innocent animals suffered from numerous experiments. She was horrified. Puppies begged and cried desperately for her help, mother tried to feed their children the best they could, and even a few witnessed the death of their own family. “Oh my god…” She thought to herself as she glanced over the whole warehouse where hundreds of cages stacked the walls. The furthest part of the warehouse was, by far, the most frightening part. This was the selection area. A door led to a long conveyor-like counter that branched off in two further down the line. Fresh new victims would be shipped in to this area where, on the beginning of the long counter, they were given thorough medical exams. Everything from temperature to pulse would be checked and the prisoner would either get the go ahead or would be rejected. The next test was the physical endurance test. Prisoners’ overall health and shape would be check here. Healthy prisoners would get the go ahead to the next and final selection while out of shape and sick prisoners were rejected. Towards the end of the counter, it split in two. On one side, the side where healthy prisoners went, each prisoner was tagged with the name and description of what type of experiment they’d receive later. On the other end, where the rejected went, were cases of vials labeled “HCN, NaCN, and KCN. Heather knew that these letters stood for the most toxic poison produced including hydrogen cyanide, sodium cyanide, and the deadliest, a nerve agent called Sarin VX otherwise known as the “Nerve filter.” Each poison was carefully measured inside of a syringe before they were administered to rejected prisoners. A manifest that described the legal dosages of nerve agents on preadolescent animals caught her attention. The manifest explained in detail that the nerve agents were produced to but didn’t necessarily kill the prisoners as they were supposed to; but instead, they would cause a series of intense, painful side affects that prolonged the suffering of the prisoner. Heather was shocked by the precautions the manifest suggested to make the prisoner suffer more. She continued on towards the back where a large room with a terrible odor was located.         The smell of death stained the air choking her as she persisted into the room. Once she realized what the room was she froze in terror. The room was full of a series of dead and dying animals that failed the selection. What scared Heather more than anything was the fact that a majority of the prisoners that had been captured, some killed, and others experimented on were all very young. This was certainly the type of evidence The HQ needed to invade the outpost. Heather knew the importance of her findings and finally realized that it would not only affect the outcome of the war for lions, but it would also affect the lives of civilians and non-war patrons worldwide. She turned away from the room, the hundreds of cages, and the warehouse and headed back the way she came to alert the HQ of Eucadia’s cruel experiments.

The group had covered miles of ground without running into anymore ambushes thanks to the use of scouts. Pryce led the crowd of Veridian refugees miles away from their outpost and miles closer to the mainland where it’s safe. Questions such as “how much farther” and “What if there’s another ambush” began to circulate and frighten the civilians in the large crowd. Pryce couldn’t answer either question. Instead, he continued on and only gained information from the navigators and Gail, their scout. She always continued ahead of the group to scout out possible ambush points and landmarks that could indicate their location. “Maybe we should take a rest… you look a little stressed out.” Daisy advised examining him. “I’m fine.” Pryce responded without looking at her, “We should be there shortly anyway.” She glanced behind her and scanned the exhausted crowd. “Well maybe we should give the others a rest; we have been walking for miles without any…” Daisy aimed at another attempt. Pryce stopped. “Okay fine…” he faced the crowd, “We’ll take a rest here and continue on in about two hours!” The crowd was relieved. Everyone in the migration dropped their belongings and a few scouted out for water. Jasmine, Brianna, Ty, Alex, Baron, and the others floated around the rear of the crowd. When they heard of a rest, they too were relieved. “Finally!” Ty griped as he plopped down on the grass, “It’s about time!” Jasmine was concerned about stopping in this area, “Wait up okay? I’m going to see what’s up.” Alex, Baron and Savanna went off with a few others to find water. “The stream should be somewhere this way.” Baron tipped as the small assemblage reached a thick forest. “Are you sure?” Alex challenged, “What if there’s something in there that wants to kill us!” Alex was right. “There’s nothing in there, Relax!” Baron responded crossing into the dark forest with everyone else following. Savanna was afraid of the forest so she remained on the outside, the biggest mistake of her life. From behind her, an unidentified grey wolf grabbed her muzzle and tied it together so she couldn’t cry for help. Accompanying the grey wolf were four others belonging to Eucadia’s reconnaissance force. “I got one of ‘em.” The Grey wolf reported to the others. “Okay, good. That’s all we need for now.” Another from the recon force responded quietly. Savanna tried desperately to escape but she was powerless against the five Eucadian wolves. “Stop moving!” the grey wolf growled at her as he thrust a fist into her stomach. “We got to go before they realize one missing.” The largest and apparent leader of the recon force recommended. The five wolves headed towards the nearest Eucadian outpost only miles away. “See told ya!” Baron cried pointing at a stream of crystal clear water. “I never said there wasn’t any here.” Alex replied shrugging. “Whatever, let’s just let the other know.” Another wolf commented as they all returned to the crowd. All except Savanna.  

 The five wolves made it back to the outpost dragging Savanna along. It was in the dead of evening and the outpost had already shifted into its night-mode. Bright white searchlights scanned the ground while patrols circled the exterior of the base. Savanna was taken into a warehouse in the back of the outpost to be questioned. The warehouse smelled of death and she could hear the desperate cries of other animals. She didn’t know it, but Savanna was inside of the same warehouse Heather had been in hours before. “Found her near the forest.” One of the reconnaissance wolves informed a medical technician, “She’s Veridian.” The medical technician nodded, “Okay then let us begin.” The tech grabbed Savanna by the back of her neck and placed her on the long counter. The freezing counter fired chills up and down her spine as the tech proceeded to prodding and poking her. “She seems healthy.” The tech announced to another down the line. “Alright,” The second tech replied grabbing her, “What’s your name?” Savanna was frozen with fear. “This procedure will only take a minute…” the tech spoke as he gently injected a syringe full of cold, clear liquid into the back of her ear. Savanna was then moved along the counter towards the end where, at the same time, another captured prisoner her age was just about to be executed. Savanna and the other puppy sat watching each other surprised and a bit relieved seeing another like them. Suddenly the other puppy was seized by its neck and forced down against the counter. “Give me the uhh…” the puppy’s executer decided on the type of poison, “How about Cyanide X? We have anymore?” A tech on the other side of the counter responded, “Yep, we’ve got plenty.” One of the technicians picked up a green vial full of Cyanide X and handed it off to the puppy’s executor. “Thanks,” He said filling a long syringe full of the deadly poison. He grabbed the puppy’s ears and stuck the long needle inside one of them, directly into its brain. Once the syringe was empty, the executor tossed it and waited for the puppy’s reaction. Seconds later the puppy began to cry out loudly in pain. It grabbed its head and began to squeeze it as if it were trying to keep it from exploding. Savanna watched in horror as the puppy continued to cry in pain as blood poured from its ears and nose. It took a couple of minutes before the puppy finally died. Savanna was traumatized by this. She sat still, unable to move, as the technicians removed the body of the other puppy. “Aren’t you glad that wasn’t you?” Savanna’s technician, a large male white wolf, smiled. He then picked her up, put her into a cage, and rolled her into a questioning room. Savanna shivered in fear as the technician left her alone in the room and questions flooded her mind. Savanna was already shy and having her in this dire situation only made things worse for her. The door creaked open and one of the wolves from the recon force stepped in. “Hello there.” He smiled at Savanna spitefully, “So it seems you’re pretty healthy, huh?” Savanna was silent. The wolf paced the room a couple of times before sitting in front of the cage she was held in. “You can make this real easy for yourself and me.” The wolf began, “It’s your choice.” Savanna receded to the corner of her cage. “I see, so that’s how you want it?” The wolf smiled opening a box that sat next to her cage. The wolf pulled out a long syringe from the box, “Do you know what this is?” Savanna remained quiet and still. “Well I’ll tell you. This is what we call Cyanide XS.” Savanna looked fearfully at the syringe the wolf held. “You’ve already seen what Cyanide X can do. Imagine what XS is capable of.” Savanna looked at the wolf. He smiled, “This is especially made to prolong suffering. Symptoms include intense headaches, sores, aching, excessive bleeding, and a number of other uncomfortable things.” Savanna didn’t know what any of those symptoms meant but she knew that it would hurt her. The wolf sat down, “It’s an organ degrader. Basically, this stuff eats away at your insides slowly and painfully.” Savanna backed up farther into the corner of her cage. “Tell me where your little friends are headed and I won’t have to use this…” The wolf suggested. Savanna was too afraid to speak. The wolf sat patiently and waited. “I-I-I…” Savanna stuttered, “I don’t kn-know.” The wolf’s face lit up, “Awww what a cute little accent you got there!” Savanna looked away. “Unfortunately, that is NOT what I wanted to hear.” The wolf frowned, “Now I’m going to ask you one more time.” Tears of fear streamed down Savanna’s face, “I don’t know…” The wolf became angry, “Do you want to die!?” he screamed at her. Savanna shook her head slowly, “No…I-I don’t know… honest…” The wolf violently grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to him, “Well then I guess you’ll need sometime to think about it.” He then jammed the syringe into Savanna’s arm, “We’ll see if you know in a few minutes.” The wolf left Savanna all alone, this time with an empty syringe on the floor of her cage and Cyanide XS coursing through her veins.

The group continued on hours after Savanna was kidnapped. Since she was so quiet and kept to herself mostly, nobody realized that she was missing. No one cared. “How much longer ‘till we get there?” Alex whined as he tried to keep up with the fast moving crowd. Jasmine glanced back, “Maybe instead of running around you should have rested.” Alex ignored her. “I don’t know…” Baron sighed. He was also tired from playing around. “Why are we moving so fast?” Ty mumbled. “It’s a dangerous area I think.” Brianna answered from behind him, “We’re trying to get away from it to avoid another ambush.” Towards the front, Pryce sent out Gail to survey the land ahead. “Yes sir!” She cried and then happily ran off ahead of the massive crowd. “It’s unbelievable how happy she is doing such a dangerous job…” Daisy mentioned watching Gail disappear over the horizon. Pryce nodded, “She knows her job is important.” Gail, now miles ahead of the crowd, caught no sight of ambushes. She carefully surveyed the forests and tall grasses for signs of company. Afterwards, she continued on until the sight of the large Rift Mountain Region came into view. The sight was awing to her. She had never seen such large mountains before. Thin forests surrounded the mountains which were so high up she couldn’t see the top. She knew that they were close to the sea because of the air’s salt water scent and the gentle breeze that rolled along the plains. She went around the area and found no trace of Eucadians. With the information she gathered, Gail turned around and ran back to the crowd to alert Pryce of the news.

The violent growling in Katie’s stomach woke her up. Heather still hadn’t retuned and Victoria was wide awake exploring her new home. She slid off her bed and searched the kitchen for food with no luck. “Aw thanks Heather…” She mumbled to herself as she began searching through the cabinets. Victoria walked around trying to find herself some food also. “I’m going to find some deer.” Katie announced to the vixen, “Stay here.” Katie left the vixen alone. Victoria sniffed throughout the house in search of food. Even though she was young, she knew that she was hungry and that she needed to get some food and fast. Desperately, Victoria searched everywhere and found no food until a sound outside caught her attention. She ran to the window and looked out to find a small deer fawn feeding on the grass. Victoria searched the area for its mother but found no sign of it so she decided it was eat now or eat never. The vixen snuck through the back door and crept silently around the house keeping the fawn in her sight at all times. The innocent deer had no idea the danger that lurked behind it. In a lightning quick reaction, Victoria ran out and seized the fawn by the neck. She underestimated the strength of it and so she struggled with it for a while before she finally killed it. Happy with her meal and her first kill, Victoria sat and ate the whole fawn until only the bones remained. Victoria then returned to the house and napped. A few minutes passed and Katie finally returned with a small Elk. “Wake up Victoria I found food!” she cried excitedly. Katie didn’t know that the vixen had already eaten. Victoria ignored her. “Come on now I know you’re hungry.” Katie added and began to eat the meat herself. Victoria continued to ignore her. “Fine then. You just starve.”

Terry walked to the Eucadian HQ to report for the night shift. The night was odd and lonely as she continued to think about Flannery. She still couldn’t forgive herself for going off on Flannery like she did but she knew that it couldn’t let it interfere with her job that was keeping her alive. She arrived at the HQ gate and continued in to her office. The first person she saw was Kaya. Kaya ignored Terry. “Hey Kaya…look I’m sorry if…” Kaya cut her off, “Forget about it Terry.” She stormed off leaving Terry by herself and minus two friends. She returned to her office which had been like she left it. The fan continued to oscillate, the window was still open, and the gloom feeling remained. Before she had a chance to sit the lieutenant walked in, “Good to see you back Terry. I know it’s kind of late but I have a job for you.” “Sure I need something to take my mind off things anyway.” Terry replied sitting up. “Okay cool. A few hours ago the SS discovered a couple of lions looting a house near the outskirts of the city. They found the body of one, a female who had apparently been killed by the owner of the house.” The lieutenant explained, “They attempted to catch the other two but they fought back so we killed one of them and the other is still being questioned.” Terry continued to listen. “We think something shady is going on out there so we sent several SS troops out there to investigate but, get this; one of them caught a small female wolf, a Eucadian, that had dark red fur and was obviously too young to be walking around outside this late.” Terry’s eyes widened. “Anyway, when asked what her business was she told the guard she was headed home. But the gate guards had no record of seeing a small red wolf of her description walk in.” Terry was familiar with the description he had given her, “So… that’s where I come in?” the lieutenant nodded, “Exactly. You see there’s something going on out there and the colonel doesn’t like it.” Terry stood up, “Okay I’ll check it out.” The lieutenant smiled, “Good girl.” Terry rushed outside towards the front of the city headed for the gate. She knew that the red wolf was Flannery and that she was headed to the only safe place she could go.

Back at the warehouse, Savanna was experiencing hell. The Cyanide had begun to take its toll on her. She occasionally sank into violent seizures and was plagued by intense migraines, chills, cold sweat, and often vomited blood. The pain continued on before a technician entered the room. This technician, a female, watched her symptoms and tried to ease the pain by feeding her pain killers. “Just tell them where their going and they’ll stop.” The technician suggested kindly. Savanna was in too much pain to reply. The tech continued to watch and feed her until the recon force wolf returned. “You done yet sexy?” He smiled at the female technician who ignored him and left the room. The Recon Force Wolf then looked at Savanna who cried and whimpered in discomfort and unimaginable pain, “So are you enjoying the Cyanide so far? That’s some strong stuff isn’t it?” Savanna grabbed her stomach which churned and twisted violently forcing blood out of her mouth. The Recon Force Wolf smiled spitefully at her, “All you have to do is name a location.” Savanna looked up at the wolf and cried out, “I don’t know!!” This was followed by a violent wave of migraines. The wolf frowned at her, “You just won’t quit will you?” soon after, the wolf picked up another syringe, “You know what this is?” Savanna grasped her ears as the migraine made every sound a high pitched screech that made her ears bleed. The wolf pulled the protective casing off, “This is Siphon strain twelve, a newly designed virus that also prolongs its side effects.” He continued, “This stuff attacks your nervous system, preferably your brain. Although Siphon strain eleven causes considerable damage, twelve only causes intense, inconceivable, and incredible pain beyond belief.” The wolf turned and looked at her, “This will make you beg to die.” Savanna continued to suffer from the Cyanide XS which was painful enough by itself, now she was being threatened by the new virus. Savanna shook her head in between migraine waves, “P-p-please…no more…” The wolf grabbed her front leg, “Then tell me where the Veridians are going.” Savanna quickly made up a story, “They’re going to…” an intense wave of migraines silenced her, “Th-they’re headed to Pacifica…” She sobbed. The wolf smiled, “See? That wasn’t so hard was it?” Without warning, the wolf jammed the syringe in her leg and pulled it out, “We don’t have much need for you anymore then…” The liquid felt like acid flowing through Savanna’s veins burning her insides. She screamed in pain as the siphon strain reached her brain. The wolf got up and left Savanna alone to suffer. The wolf was right. The pain was so unimaginable and intense that Savanna wished that the Eucadian guard would have killed her instead.

Gail returned excited and proud. “Sir! Up ahead! I saw the mountains sir!” She cried out in excitement. “Any resistance postings?” Pryce asked. “Nope, just the mountains, and I could smell the sea!” Pryce continued to question her, “How far away?” “Five, maybe seven miles.” Gail responded. She could hardly hold her excitement. Pryce smiled, “Excellent,” he turned to address the crowd, “Attention! We are nearing the mainland only five to seven miles away!” The crowd cheered. Miles of walking and a small ambush was almost over and done with. The crowd continued to migrate towards the Mainland in hopes of reaching it soon. The group in the back heard the news and was perhaps more excited then anyone else. “I can’t wait to get there, imagine all the pretty girls!” Ty cried out excited by the news. Alex smiled, “Man, I’m going to eat some fresh meat and then I’m going to bed.” “I can’t wait to see my mother again.” Jasmine added. “Well I’m going to get some rest.” Brianna responded, “Because I’m so tired, I can die right now!” Tawny returned from the front of the crowd, “Come, look! You can see the mountains!” The group followed her to the midsection of the crowd where they caught their first glimpse of the huge, awe-inspiring mountain chains. “It’s beautiful…” Brianna gasped. Aerial, the Border collie from back at the outpost came back to the group, “its nice isn’t it? Wait until we reach the top and you can see the ocean from three sides.” The mountains sat on a large peninsula that jutted out miles into the sea and provided a large wall of protection for the valley below. “Most of the mainland is located on and around the tallest mountain, Mount Pyreareae.” Aerial continued. The crowd was so excited by the view of the mountains; they all ran towards the mainland eager to reach home. As they neared the opening of the valley, signs posted read “Veridia Mainland” and “Enemies will be executed” Soon the crowd caught a glimpse of the Veridian flag flying over a large checkpoint gate. They had finally made it. The crowd was stopped by Veridian guards. “Who are you?” the guard requested puzzled at the large number of wolves. “We’re the western Veridians.” Pryce informed the guards. “Oh okay then.” The guard responded and they pulled open the gates revealing the beautiful landscape of the Veridian capital. A large valley carved into the mountains trailed through and ended at a larger mountain which was the highest. Houses were carved into the sides of the mountains and at the foot of the hills where a clear stream flowed down the middle of the valley providing fresh water for the city dwellers. The brick streets provided useful travel opportunities while bridges and dams connected and controlled the channeling of the water. Although the scenery and overall feel of the place mesmerized the Western Veridians, it was the gigantic palace that sat on the tallest mountain that caught most eyes. The palace was on the summit of the mountain and was noticeably the largest structure in Mainland Veridia. “That’s where Queen Akkura and princess Kya live.” Aerial continued, “The palace is made from platinum, silver, and gold.” The Crowd was in awe at the capital city of Veridia. It was more beautiful than anybody had expected. “Welcome home.” One of the guards smiled and returned back to his post.

Heather returned to the HQ exhausted. She ran nonstop from the Eucadian outpost to The HQ. Heather rushed upstairs to the lieutenant’s office to inform him of her findings. “Heather! Back so soon?” The lieutenant smiled as she stepped in. “The outpost is exactly what Intel said it was.” She breathed tiredly. The lieutenant frowned, “So it is a Bio-Experimental base?” Heather nodded. The lieutenant looked down, “Ahh damn it; Good work Heather I’ll alert the colonel of your findings. You can go home and get some rest or whatever.”And she did just that. Heather walked through the forest headed home just as the night was about to end. She was exhausted and only looked forward to going to sleep. Heather pushed open the door to her house and went straight to her bed. “Well hello heather!” Katie cried in excitement, “Guess who made her first kill today?” Heather ignored her and went to bed. “What the heck’s her problem?” She thought aloud. Heather had extensive nightmares about what she had seen at the outpost. She couldn’t believe that the Eucadians could possibly do the things that they did. They developed high-tech poisons and weapons to take over the world in a pursuit to develop a world-wide Eucadian republic. They experimented on puppies and lion cubs as well as adult prisoners of war. The memories of the outpost haunted Heather to a point where she could hardly close her eyes. She remembered the puppies and cubs crying for her help, she remembered the smell of death that lingered in the air, and she couldn’t forget the whole selection process which gave a small puppy a fifty-fifty shot at life or death. “Hey heather… You alright?” Katie asked nervously poking her head in the room. “I’m fine Katie, go away.” Heather replied mumbling. Katie shrugged and left, “Whatever.”

The pain was unlike any Savanna ever felt. The poisons mixed inside her and caused intense discomfort and side effects. Her insides burned, her head suffered intense migraines, she continued to vomit blood, and she was too weak to stand or even cry anymore. She lay, tired but still in pain, in a puddle of blood and tears as she awaited the technician’s return. Minutes passed before the tech finally returned. This time she carried water and some painkillers. The technician knelt beside the cage, “Hey…” Savanna was too tired to reply. The tech emptied two pills on her paws and handed them to Savanna, “Painkillers?” Savanna quickly grabbed the pills and swallowed them. The tech handed Savanna the bottle of water, “It’s not much but it should help…” All of a sudden another technician peeked into the room, “Kris come quick we’re under attack!” The tech looked back, “What?!” “Just come on!” The other tech cried out as he proceeded to the remaining rooms. Seconds later, alarms blared and the whole outpost was put on high alert. Savanna had no idea what was going on but she knew she could use the opportunity to escape. Desperately she wriggled the cage door in order to loosen it but she was interrupted by the Recon Force wolf that entered the room. “Where do you think you’re going?” he growled producing a syringe, “Command made it clear that they wanted all prisoners killed so that the lions won’t know what we’re up to. So you can make this easy or you can makes this hard…” The wolf opened the cage to inject her with the needle but she used that opportunity to escape. When the cage door opened all the way, Savanna sprinted out and towards the door which was locked. The wolf smiled at her, “Nice try… but I figured you’d play a little trick like that sooner or later.” Savanna knew that she could either back down and die or fight back and probably survive. She quickly ran behind the wolf and dug her claws in his back. He cried in pain and dropped the needle. Savanna climbed up behind his neck and bit down on his right ear. The wolf tried to get a hold of her but couldn’t because she was too fast for him. She continued to bite and scratch until the wolf began to get tired. She was using excellent strategies and things were beginning to look up in her favor. At least, until the painkillers wore off. Suddenly, the many symptoms from the previous poisons began to return twice as hard at her. She fell to the floor and cried out in pain as she grabbed her head. The migraines set back in immobilizing her. The Recon Force wolf began to laugh, “I hope you enjoyed your short lived victory…” With that he jammed the long syringe in her neck and injected the cold green liquid into her body. The effects were almost immediate. She became disorientated, her face turned white, and her energy was drained completely. The wolf got up and wilted to the door, “Have a good life!” Savanna tried to stand but the poison sucked down her strength and forced her back to the ground. She could feel her heartbeat slow and most of her body already began to shut down. Savanna, hopeless in her situation, crawled slowly across the room before the poison finished her off. Her heart began to beat slower and slower, quieter and quieter until it finally stopped. The poison had taken its toll on her. She lied down, closed her eyes and gave her last breath. 

Mean while outside the warehouse, the Eucadian wolves tried to defend the outpost from the Imperialist lions but it was no use. They were outnumbered and out-strengthened. The lions pushed the Eucadians all the way back where they made their last stand at the warehouse. The Reconnaissance Force wolves were sent out to try and weaken the lions but they were all killed by the lions. Within hours the Outpost was completely taken over by the lions. Hundreds of Eucadian prisoners were taken back to the HQ and a few animals that had been experimented on were saved. Among the attacking lions was Heathers lieutenant. He had coordinated the attack from his office and he had come to see the damage they had done. At the same time, a Eucadian messenger who escaped the takeover returned to the Eucadian capitol to alert their leader of the takeover and the exchange of valuable information from the technicians to the lions. “We will not stand for this.” The leader growled looking from the window of his estate. “What should we do sir?” the messenger nervously asked. The leader smiled spitefully, “You leave that up to me. Now go home to your family. You did well.” The doorbell to heather’s house door rang. It was a contact sent from the outpost to retrieve her. “Lieutenant Griffin said it was important.” The contact informed. She and heather returned to the Outpost where the lions had already established their own. “Here she is sir.” The contact said to the lieutenant as she walked off. “Ah heather, it’s good to see you again.” The lieutenant smiled, “I hope I’m not annoying you.” Heather rolled her eyes, “Not at all…” “Good! So as you can see we took over the outpost and you won’t believe the stuff we found. Thousands of packages of Poisons such as Cyanide, Nerve Agents, Biohazardous Agents, and Viruses like rabies.” The lieutenant continued, “They’ve somehow found a way to mass produce these poisons and viruses. If they develop weapons that can spread this stuff around like bombs or…” He paused. “Or what?” Heather poked at his statement. “Or nerve gases.” The Lieutenant finished. Heather looked around the outpost, “Did you see the experiments?” The lieutenant nodded, “It was a horrible scene. We saved most of them but the majority had been killed before we got there.” He continued, “Oh and we captured a lot of them too. We have everything from stubborn recon forces to scared technicians.” Heather looked over at a line of captured Eucadians, “What are they going to do to them?” The lieutenant began to follow them, “Come on I’ll show you.” They walked into a small building with several one-way glass rooms used for questioning. Heather and the lieutenant observed the questioning of the kind female technician and the Recon Force wolf that had killed Savanna. “I followed orders…” The kind female technician whispered looking away from the questioning lion, “I actually tried to help them but… If I were caught I’d be arrested for treason and then… then I’d be killed…” the force Recon wolf looked sharply at her, “You deserve to die! Helping the enemy… You’re a traitor!” The female tech looked the wolf in the eyes, “There’s a certain extent I’d go to defend my nation and do my duties. But, I would not ever go to the extent of poisoning and infecting innocent puppies and cubs with diseases and poisons in order to experiment on developing weapons!” she continued, “Eucadia is bullying the world with its weapons technology and you know it! We used to be a noble, respectable nation until power hungry leaders and blood thirsty soldiers like you took over and ruined it!” The Recon Force wolf spat at her, “You and your family should all be killed! They should force your kids to watch you die!” The female technician rolled her eyes and mumbled, “Bite me.” The lieutenant looked over at Heather, “The female tech is cooperating. She tells us everything we need to know, and we set her free. Sounds fair right?” Heather nodded. “On the other hand, the male will probably be killed.” Heather smiled, “Good, I don’t like him.” The lieutenant looked back over at heather, “You know this all wouldn’t be possible without you.” Heather shrugged, “Just doing my job.” The lieutenant smiled, “I put you in for a promotion. So you’ll be doing your job BUT you’ll get paid say… thirty percent more?” Heather smiled, “Yeah…I’d like that.” The lieutenant looked back at the interrogation, “Well then congratulations on your promotion Mrs. Heather.”

The group walked down the streets of the Veridian mainland headed towards the palace. They were all excited to have finally made it to the mainland but were more excited to live in a beach-side district. Pryce led the West Veridians to the palace gates. “We’re the West.” He told the guards and they proceeded to the palace. Inside was majestic. No one in the crowd had ever seen such a large place nor have they seen one built with gold, silver, and platinum. They stood in the main lobby of the palace waiting to be greeted by the Veridian queen Akkura. “It’s beautiful…” Jasmine thought out loud as she scanned the entirety of the palace indoors. The large balcony in the back towered over everything else in the mainland and revealed the vast ocean and the sunrise. Finally a wolf of about thirteen years with very long red and white fur and decorated with jewels and bows came from the upstairs. She was very kind and spoke softly, quietly, and properly. “Hi everybody. I have to apologize on behalf of my mother, she’s off somewhere… I’m not really sure where… By the way, my name is Kya, Princess Kya, but you can just call me Kya if you want.” She tried desperately not to embarrass herself. “You’re really pretty…” Ty drooled staring at her and not realizing she heard him. “Why thank you! You’re… Pretty… yourself…” Kya responded nervously, “So…uh… Do you want me to take you to your living district or…uh…do you want a tour of the palace? Maybe?” Although a tour of the palace seemed mostly in favor, everyone in the crowd was exhausted from the migration so they all agreed to go to the district. “She’s HOT…” Ty whispered to Alex and Baron, “How old do you think she is?” Baron looked at her, “I don’t know I’d say… twelve or thirteen?” Alex nodded, “Yeah she looks thirteen.” “D****t!” Ty barked discretely, “I have no chance at her!” Baron shook his head, “I don’t know she looks shy. Perhaps if you make her feel comfortable and maybe show her that cute sense of humor you have. It’s a possibility you’ll be able to have her.” Ty looked at Baron, “You think so?” Baron nodded. “Okay guys this area is especially for you. Uh… I think you guys can choose your houses and… uh… I think there’s some sort of… thing that tells you about how thinks kind of…go around here so if everyone’s okay then I guess I’ll go…but if anyone needs me I’ll be… there.” Kya appeared very shy in her speech but that attracted Ty even more. “Oh my god I’d take her.” He mumbled to himself. Jasmine couldn’t wait to rest and wake up later that day so she could go and search for her mother who, hopefully, made it there also. The crowd chose their houses and settled down in them. A few left to find food while others wanted to relax and enjoy the sun rise on the beach that was not too far away from the district. Brianna slept soundlessly in her bed while Jasmine sat at the window watching Allue’s puppies play in the water and thinking about the whole war. Alex and Baron slept with each other while Ty slept in his own bed. Tawny, the quietest, realized Savanna was missing but was too afraid to tell anyone. She walked aimlessly up and down the beach worrying about savanna. Was she okay? Where is she now? Where did she go? Questions like that filled her mind so full of thought that she was virtually unconscious. Allue’s puppies played in the beach without a worry or care. Even though their mother was killed, they enjoyed their new home and the protection that kept them all safe.

Terry searched the dark forest for hours looking for Flannery. She wanted to apologize to her and perhaps take her back but she had to find her first. Terry found all sorts of evidence that confirmed Flannery being there and indicated the presence of another individual. She continued on and on until finally she reached a large pond. It was out from under the trees so the sunlight lit up the surrounding area. From across the pond, she could faintly see Flannery and some other fox. Terry was filled with excitement and cried out her name, “Flannery!” The figures glanced toward her. “Hey Flannery!” She cried running toward her however she didn’t realize that the closer she got to Flannery the more her feelings changed from excited to sort of angry. When she reached the other side she and Flannery had an awkward confrontation. “What the hell are you doing running around out here?” Terry growled sternly at Flannery who was equally angered. “I’m getting away from you, you stupid mean b***h!” Flannery replied sharply. Terry countered, “Do you know how much trouble you can get in if they find you out here?! And where the hell do you think going!?” Flannery spat at her, “It’s none of your business!” Terry looked over at the fox, “Whose this?” Flannery got in front of her, “She’s my new friend! I’m sure she won’t kick me out and throw me away like YOU did!!” Terry calmed down, “Flannery listen I…” Flannery interrupted, “No you listen! I loved you! I did everything for you and I never complained about anything! I gave you the upmost respect and what do you do? You kick me out because “I’m too young.” I never want to hear you, see you, feel you, or smell you ever again!” Terry became furious and began to stomp towards her, “Listen here you little rat! I did everything for you while you stayed your lazy a*s home and did absolutely nothing and you’re going to tell me…” Flannery cried out as Terry got closer, “Stay away from me!” But Terry continued to get closer triggering the feeling Flannery feared. She began to feel the familiar dizziness sensation that she felt several times before and that never ended well. Eventually she was, once again, controlled by her aggression. Flannery’s aggression indiscriminately attacked anything and everything in its path causing Terry massive damage. Her aggression kept on her; Slashing, cutting, biting and clawing Terry until finally she tired. Terry stood confused, breathing heavily, trembling and coated in blood. She never got a hit on Flannery because she was to fast.  “What the hell…” Terry thought to herself. She only experienced her aggression twice but this time she could finally realize it’s potential. Flannery stood breathing heavily as her aggression subsided. She looked up, “You’re lucky it didn’t kill you…” Flannery mumbled. Terry was in awe, “Wh-what was that…” Flannery looked down trying to catch as much breath as possible, “It was me…It was my anger.” Terry looked over behind her and smiled spitefully, “Well your “Anger” sure does need glasses.” Flannery looked at her confused, “What?” Terry, still smiling, laughed out, “It obviously can’t tell the good guys from the bad.” At that moment Terry pointed over to Flora who lay lifelessly in the grass. Flannery froze, “No…” Terry smiled, “Nice job Flannery, nice job! You kill your own friend! So I guess she WILL leave you like I did huh?” Flannery ran to Flora’s side and sat. “Flora…” She whispered desperately, “Flora please…please wake up…” Tears began to flow from her eyes, “Flora please, don’t die…!…I love you…” Terry began laughing hysterically, “She’s already dead Flannery! You killed her!” Flannery began to cry, “I didn’t mean to hurt her…” Terry sat down, “So what are you going to do know?” But Flannery ignored her. She was so distraught by the death of Flora that she initially didn’t believe it. Terry sat there and enjoyed Flannery’s adversity. “Hey Flannery! If we were still going out would you have killed me like that? Well then I’m sure glad I dropped your little a*s before you could swipe my throat!” Flannery looked back at her, “Leave me alone…” Terry put both her front paws up, “Sorry! Please continue.” Flannery sat there for hours trying to accept the fact that she accidently killed Flora, her soon to be girlfriend. Finally, after hours of sitting there motionlessly, Flannery got up and continued south towards Pacifica. Terry, bored with Flannery, slept in the grass. She stepped over Terry and continued on her way. Flannery couldn’t think. Life hit her too hard and now she paid for it. Thoughts and memories ran through her head as she walked; Thoughts of how her life was and how it changed so suddenly. She tried hard to forget memories about Terry but she hardly had anything to remember Flora from with the exception of her kindness and hearty personality. These ran through her head as she continued on to Pacifica, the last safe place for her.

The white female technician wolf sat quietly in the questioning room and waited for the next round of questioning. Heather walked in and sat down, “Hello I’m Heather and I’m here just to discuss some general information about your roll in this outpost.” The tech nodded, “Okay.” Heather continued, “First, may I ask you your name?” The tech replied, “Vikki.” Heather nodded, “Okay then Vikki, what exactly were you expected to do here?” Vikki sat up, “Well I was told to test the health of the animals and anyone who failed it, I was told, would be reported and executed immediately.” Heather acknowledged, “Did you ever condemn anyone to death?” Vikki shook her head, “Never. I couldn’t” “What did you do instead?” Heather questioned. “Instead, I fed the animals; I gave them water, painkillers, things that would make their lives the least bit easier.” Heather nodded, “As a Eucadian Wolf Technician, you were obliged to follow the guidelines for treatment and experimentation on these subjects and if you were caught counter-treating these animals you would have been killed on the spot. Did you realize this while you were engaging in these counter-acts?” Vikki nodded, “Yes. I didn’t and still don’t believe in these cruel experiments against innocent animals so I tired my best to take care of the injured and sick the best way I could.” Heather nodded, “You seem like a legitimate, peace loving Eucadian so why would you work her?” Vikki shrugged, “I was drafted into the Eucadian army against my choice and I was ordered to work here. When the leader says go, you go, or be executed.” Heather sat up, “So if we release you now, where would you go?” Vikki thought, “Since it would be dangerous to return to Eucadia as AWOL personnel, I’d return to either Pacifica or southern Chernova where it’s safe.” Heather nodded, “Okay then, thank you for your cooperation I’ll suggest your release to my lieutenant and you’ll be home free.” Vikki smiled, “Thank you.” Heather returned to the lieutenant’s office and sat down. “Here’s my pretty lady! What’s up?” The lieutenant exclaimed. “Vikki, the Eucadian Technician? I think she should be released.” “Done.” The lieutenant smiled, “You know Heather maybe you and I, maybe we should go out and do something together… you know… a date?” She smiled, “Sure thing lieutenant I’d love to; if I knew your real name. “Paul,” The lieutenant replied with a smile, “How about tonight at six?” Heather nodded, “Okay then sure!” The lieutenant smiled, “I’ll meet you at your place. That okay?” Heather nodded, “That’d be perfect…” “It’s a date then! See you at six sharp!” The lieutenant exclaimed walking out of his office. Meanwhile Vikki the white wolf was released.                  

Back at the Eucadian HQ Darryl, the leader of the Eucadian Republic called an important meeting in his large mountain retreat to discuss their next move. His highest generals and government officials sat around the table discussing secret information that no one except them were allowed to know for security reasons. At the same time his littlest daughter, Patrice, explored the hallways of their new retreat. She poked her head in the meeting room not knowing what was going on. “So I figured it’d be safer to attack from the southeast where their defenses are weak.” One of the generals suggested. The participants nodded in agreement and awaited the final decision from the leader, “Alright, assemble the task force. When should we attack?” One of the other generals stood up, “There’s supposed to be a major rainstorm coming up tomorrow. I think if we use that opportunity, we’ll be able to covertly infiltrate the base.” The leader nodded, “Okay then its settled.” Patrice continued her exploration thinking nothing on what she heard eavesdropping on the meeting. Later that evening, Patrice watched TV when one of her father’s associates came into the room. The associate, a grey wolf with an intimidating look appeared. “Your father wants to see you.” The associate announced leading her to her father’s study. The associate waited outside as Patrice slowly proceeded in. “Y-you wanted to see me, dad?” She answered nervously. Her father stood looking out of a window and made no attempt to look at her. “Yes I did. Today, at the meeting, what exactly did you hear us talking about?” Patrice froze, “WH-what do you mean?” “Don’t play stupid with me!” her father roared slamming his fist into the table. Immediately, Patrice was frozen with fear, “I-I-I heard…I-I heard about the attack…” Her father turned around and faced her, his sharp yellow eyes cutting through her, “What about the attack?” Patrice looked away, “I heard when and where…” Her father turned back around. “I won’t tell anybody…I promise…” Patrice whispered quietly. Her father frowned, “This is very important information we were discussing there, Patrice.” She sat quietly. Her father looked back out the window. “I promise, I won’t tell anybody.” Patrice suggested more confidently. “I know you won’t.” Her father mumbled to her, “You’re a good girl, Patrice.”  She relaxed a bit and smiled, “I love you dad…” He replied, “I love you too, Patrice.” At that moment her father turned and left the room. At the door, he stopped and whispered to his associate, “Kill her.”

Jasmine explored the city alone in search oh her mother and siblings even though the day began to convert to night. She gathered enough information to find out where the Veridian government kept records on missing people so her search took her to the main library in the heart of the city. “Excuse me miss…” jasmine requested nervously to the receptionist. “Yes how can I help you?” Jasmine looked down uneasily, “Do you… Do you know where I can find the list of names from Veridia East?” The receptionist pointed down a long corridor, “Its right at the end of the hallway to your right.” Jasmine nodded, “Thank you,” and continued down the long corridor. The hall was lined with rooms that contained thousands of books and databases about countless subjects and topics. Towards the end of the hall, Jasmine took a right. There, computers lined a large wall most of which were taken. Jasmine circled the room until one became vacant and she quickly took it. She sat down and switched the computer on. “Welcome to the Veridian populations database. Please select a region.” The computer suggested. The regions listed “North, South, East, and West”; Jasmine selected east. “You have selected The Eastern Veridian database. Please enter in the name of the person or persons you wish to search for.”  She typed in her own name to verify the computer’s knowledge. In mere seconds everything, excluding her sensitive information, showed up on the screen. A picture of her taken three years ago popped up on the screen next to other information such as her hair and eye color. She was reported as “missing”.  “Cool…” Jasmine thought to herself as she cleared the search and typed in her mother’s name. Like her own information, her mother’s showed up on the screen displaying the names of her puppies, her age, eye color, and much more. Under her mother’s name was “imprisoned”. Jasmine continued reading, “During the Eastern migration it is confirmed that Anne Howell along with seven other Eastern Veridians were captured and are being held at Eucadian outpost fourteen near the East Pacifican Strait.” Jasmine exited out of the computer and left the library. On her way home she stopped and looked towards the gates of the city. “Hey Jasmine where you headed?” Ty asked walking by from the market side. “I’m going to find her…” She whispered. Ty was shocked, “Find who?” Jasmine looked at him, “My mother. She’s at outpost fourteen.” Ty looked towards the gate, “and you’re planning to go by yourself?” Jasmine shrugged. “Listen, I don’t know a lot but I know if you go out there by yourself the Eucadians will tear you to pieces!” Jasmine looked back at him, “You, Alex, and Baron can come… If you want…” Ty looked at her, “Do you think we can pull it off?” Jasmine nodded, “Remember what we did back home? We used to sneak into Eucadia’s Capitol all the time!” Ty smiled, “Yeah good times. But that was before…”  “Before Darryl came to power I know but just think about it for a sec. The four of us we’re used to these secret missions! Look from where we came! We escaped Caniridia and the invading Eucadians right?” Ty nodded. “Then we can get in there and rescue my mom and the others! We’ll be heroes!” Ty thought about it, “Okay that sounds fun! But we need to figure out where the base is, how we’re going to get in it, where your mom is, and mostly how we’re going to convince Brianna to stay with the others.” Jasmine smiled, “Leave that to me.”

Vikki the white wolf pawed her way through the tall grass of the prairie headed the wrong way. Her intentions were to reach the neutral nation of Pacifica but she headed strait towards Outpost 14, where Jasmine’s mother was being held. Hours went by when she finally reached the outpost gate. “Hey there a familiar face!” The Eucadian guard exclaimed. Vikki was surprised, “Wait, where am I?” The wolf smiled, “Outpost 14 silly girl.” Vikki became frustrated, “D****t…” The wolf stopped smiling, “Why where you headed?” She had to think of a quick lie, “Uh…Eucadia?” The wolf nodded, “Okay I’ll tell you how to get there. But first why don’t you come inside and take a rest?” Vikki reluctantly entered. The wolf took her to a small barracks building where he showed her a room. “You can rest here for the night and look around if you want.” And she did just that. Once the wolf left Vikki explored the unfamiliar new base. She had cleared several buildings before she entered one named the POW area. Inside she saw several prison cells which contain prisoners. “God we’re so…” Vikki thought to herself angered by Eucadia’s actions. She walked through the building towards the back where seven Veridian prisoners slept. Vikki sat down in front of a cell where a large, pregnant female wolf lay cleaning her puppies. “Hi there…” Vikki smiled at the puppies that nervously backed away, “They’re beautiful…” The female wolf smiled, “Thank you.” Vikki looked at her, “What are they doing to you guys here?” The wolf looked back at her, “Nothing... why?” Vikki glanced behind her, “I can help you and your puppies escape.” The wolf looked at her, “Really?” Vikki nodded. “Won’t you get into trouble?” The wolf questioned. Vikki shrugged, “Only if I get caught. My name’s Vikki by the way.” The wolf replied, “I don’t want to put you in danger…” Vikki quickly responded, “No, no it’ll be okay! Where’re you headed? Don’t worry you can trust me.” “The mainland,” Anne responded, “Its where my daughter jasmine is.” Vikki nodded, “Okay well. Tell the others and get ready okay? I’ll come around tonight and we’ll head for the mainland.” Vikki turned around to leave. “Wait!” Vikki stopped. “Why are you helping us?” Anne asked quietly. “I believe in peace in the world.” Vikki replied and then left. She returned to the wolf at the gate. “Hey there!” Jasmine exclaimed in a fake voice trying to lure the male into a trap. “Hey there what’s up?” the wolf smiled trying to hide is attraction for her. “Listen if you weren’t doing anything maybe we can go somewhere like…oh…the key room?” The male began to sweat, “uh…I don’t think we’re…I’m allowed to go in there…” She plastered on a fake disappointed face, “Awww…where are we going to go then?” The male was puzzled, “We?” She replied, “Yeah I thought WE were going to go somewhere and make puppies?” the male was aroused, “Uh wait yeah I think it’d be okay!” The male then went and unlocked the back room where the keys to the prison cells were kept. Once he unlocked the door Vikki grabbed a pencil from the desk and jammed it into the male wolf’s back. The male cried in pain and then shortly passed out from shock. She entered the room and searched the key drawers until she found the proper one for the prison cells. On her way out she patted the knocked-out wolf on the head, “Thank you…” and left.  Later that evening, she returned. “Ready?” The seven Veridian wolves had already gathered their items and were ready to escape. Vikki unlocked the cells and led them to the alley next to the building. “Wait here…” She whispered as she went ahead to clear a path out. Five minutes later she returned, “Hurry this way OK? We’ve got to get out as soon as possible.” Vikki led the prisoners outside the outpost from an unguarded gate near the back. They were home free.

 

 

 

Flannery reached the main Pacifican Interstate where different types of animals traveled from the city to the outskirts where they lived. Pacifica is a large circular city located on the coast with its busiest areas in and around the center of the circle. As one fans out, the city becomes less crowded and is more suitable to live in. Outside the city, the outskirts completed the circle. The outskirts contained a majority of the civilian population as well as the military’s and is know for supporting most animals that preferred to live outside the city. Security was loose and, as a result of its neutrality, its army was laid back and relaxed in a state of readiness. Hence its name, Pacifica is a coastal port area that is themed mainly around the sea. It houses a large economy surrounded by international trade which is especially useful around war times. Mountain lions are the nation’s main natives but they have a vast minority population that includes wolves, foxes, African lions, horses, zebras, gazelles, and hundreds of other species. Flannery blended right in to the large group of animals headed for the center of the city. She walked by a large sign that read “Welcome to The United States of Pacifica”. The road went from dirt to nicely paved and large apartments and buildings began to appear. Flannery could see the ocean from far off in the distance as well as towering skyscrapers. She continued on to the center of the city where she was assaulted with crowds of animals and tall buildings everywhere. She had no idea what to do or where to go; she was just a lonely puppy standing clueless in the center of one of the largest cities in the region. Flannery wandered around the city in search of a place to live and food to eat with no luck. Her wandering took her to the city’s busy port where large ships came and went carrying munitions to supply the English wolves in their war across the ocean. On the east side of the port were abandoned, undisturbed port-side buildings and warehouses; the perfect place to stay. Flannery pushed open the door to a large building that appeared deserted. Inside of the building was larger than she anticipated. There was more than enough room to live in and a few of the offices inside of the building supplied a number of useful items. Flannery made a bed from tarp and straw and then left to find food. The midday rush crowded the city with workers and civilians while the outskirts were ideal locations for military drills making it nearly impossible to find wild meat. Flannery walked through the midday rush and the commuter traffic to the other side of the financial district which was much less hectic. At a park behind a large skyscraper, she discovered a small population of wild gazelles living away from the confusion. She immediately found food and returned to her house. Throughout her travels, Flannery kept on thinking about Flora, her small fox friend that she accidently killed in her rush of aggression. Flannery was ripped apart inside by that and she could hardly think straight. Everything happened so fast it was like she couldn’t keep up. Flannery walked into the abandoned warehouse to her makeshift bed and went to sleep.

“No, Jasmine I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Brianna replied to her. “Come on Brianna! God knows what’s happening to those prisoners now!” Jasmine whined trying to convince Brianna to let them go. “Look, I understand that your mother is in danger but sneaking into a Eucadian outpost with no plan is the worst thing we could do at this point.” Brianna countered. Jasmine looked away and then back at her, “Well then what are we going to do then?” Brianna sat down, “Veridia plans to take the outpost over anyway. I think we should wait until they liberate them.” Jasmine frowned, “What if there’s not enough time!” Brianna shrugged. “This is the worldwide news network, I’m Trisha Strathem.” The news blared from the living room directing all attention to the screen. “In the news today, the Caniridian war turns in favor of the Eucadian forces that now inhabit sixty-seven percent of the city. The Imperial Union of lions direct thirty percent of the city while the foxes desperately hold on to their three percent. Across the ocean, Siberia and England wage war against Tavernia in an answer against its aggression. The Wolf-populated Tavernia, in league with many other lion-nations, is seen as an unstoppable force as they march through the region annexing nations as they go. Tavernia’s alliance, called the Axis, tore through Siberia’s east without problem. England fears that its immovable forces might turn against them and take over the entire continent and possibly, if they form an alliance with the unstoppable dictator of Eucadia, the world.” The group all sat quietly as the news ended. The world was falling apart and they knew it. “Do you think… that the Axis could take over the world?” Baron asked nervously looking at Brianna. She looked away, “its not looking good, baron…” The rest of the group remained silent. Brianna looked back up at jasmine, “Think it’s a good idea to go now?” Jasmine shook her head. Brianna passionately brushed her paw down jasmine’s hair, “I’m sure she’ll be fine. They just have to wait until the liberators get there.” Jasmine looked away, “I just want to know she’ll be safe.” Ty came into the nearly silent room, “What’s going on? Why’s it so quiet?” Alex came in behind him. “The news…” Jasmine informed them quietly, “Axis is winning.” Ty shrugged, “Figures. They have better weapons.” Jasmine looked down and away. Alex sat next to Baron, “So that’s why everyone’s sad?” He nodded, “Yep. Eucadia’s winning in the Caniridian war too. Seems like the world is coming to an end”

Darryl’s associate entered the room where his daughter Patrice was, “Hello there…” Patrice, surprised by his unannounced entry, spun around, “Oh! Hi! Sorry you frightened me…” The associate walked closer to her, “So tell me about what you heard…” Patrice became nervous, “Uhh…I just heard where and when the atta…” Before she could finish, the associate pulled out a long blade, “Hold still and make my job easier.” Patrice backed away, “Dad? Dad!!” The associate shook his head, “Daddy won’t save you this time sweetheart… You’ve heard too much.” Patrice backed up against a wall, “I told him I wouldn’t tell!” The associate quickly replied, “No matter, the fact still remains. You heard something that is important and needs not fall into the wrong hands.” Patrice shook her head, “Please don’t do this! I won’t tell!” the associate grabbed her ears and jammed the blade into the bottom of her stomach. Patrice cried in pain as the associate dug the blade into her stomach and pulled it up. “Now I’ve been told to put you to sleep peaceful and painlessly by your father. But he isn’t here…IS HE?!” The associate quickly drew the blade up. Blood poured from her wound and onto the associate’s paws. Patrice struggled to speak but the cold blade inside of her forced her jaws shut. It became hard to breathe, as if her throat was closing in. “You have a very strange father Patrice.” The associate smiled as he kept her pinned against the wall with the blade in her stomach, “I don’t know anyone who’d order his associate to kill his own Daughter.” Patrice tried to reply. The associate ripped the blade from her stomach dragging a stream of blood with it and causing Patrice to fall to her knees. She breathed calmly to preserve oxygen. The associate lifted her chin up to face him, “How’re you feeling, princess?” Patrice tried to escape but it was no use. “Commander wants to see you!” A voice cried out from behind the locked door. The associate nodded and looked back at Patrice, “Looks like our fun is over…” The associate then flipped out his claws and forced them through her throat killing her instantly. The associate observed the room which was covered in blood. “Hm…” he thought to himself and then reported to the commander. “Did you do the job?” The commander asked looking over the balcony on the roof of his getaway. “Yes sir.” The associate replied. “Good, I don’t need important information getting out. We will continue the operation as planned.” The commander finished walking off.

 It was just beginning to turn dark when Jasmine’s mother, Anne, and the six other prisoners migrated away from the outpost towards the Veridian mainland while Vikki, the technician who freed them, headed in the opposite direction to the United States of Pacifica. She prayed and hoped to herself that jasmine and the others had made it to the Mainland unhurt. They had traveled for miles before they reached the familiar Veridian Mainland sign and entered into the vast city. They all went their separate ways leaving Anne and her several puppies alone to find Jasmine. She searched all over before she finally decided to use the database. “Welcome to the Veridian populations database. Please select a region.” The computer suggested. The regions listed “North, South, East, and West”. Anne entered in all the necessary information to find her and Jasmine’s information page popped up on the screen; her address and everything else.  Anne was overjoyed when she read out Jasmine’s whereabouts so she hurried with her puppies to the housing where she stayed. Meanwhile, Jasmine and the others sat around and observed the news. “Officials are now saying that Eucadia’s aggression will bring about more violent acts towards its surrounding neighbors. The United States of Pacifica suggests that it will fight back should Eucadia provoke them. In other news, The Veridian republic and the United States of Pacifica sign an Allies treaty, promising protection from either side. This treaty means that The USP will aid Veridia in any war and vice versa. Caniridia is trying to get Allied treaties passed but with the obvious war going on it doesn’t appear that they’ll get much help.” The news continued on while the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it…” Jasmine mumbled sliding off the couch. Jasmine walked over to the door and opened it. “Breaking news!” the television flashed red as jasmine stood breathless looking into the eyes of her mother. Important news played on the TV as everyone else crowded the door to see jasmine’s mother. “Breaking news, Eucadian messengers were intercepted a few minutes ago with incriminating information leading to the belief in a possible attack against Veridia. We ask that all…” The news was drowned out by all the excitement. Jasmine clung to her mother as tears cascaded from her eyes. She was excited knowing that her mother was safe. “
It’s so good to see you again!” Her mother cried also excited. Jasmine nodded softly as she was too choked up by tears to speak. All the others were also excited by Jasmine’s mother but this led Ty, Alex, and Baron into wondering where their parents were. Jasmine and her mother caught up on everything while the three left to the databases to find their own parents. “So you guys were actually at Caniridia when it was being bombed?!” Jasmine’s mother questioned, surprised at her. Jasmine nodded excitedly but then looked away “Abby and Orianna died though…” Her mother’s eyes lit up, “Oh no…” Jasmine nodded. Meanwhile, the other three arrived at the database. “I’ll go first okay?” Alex cried out to the other two. “How about there’s more than one computer? Idiot.” Ty snapped back getting on a computer. “Oh…” Alex replied looking at the row of computers. Baron laughed. The three got onto the computers and looked themselves up first to make sure the whole database system was working. “Oh my god I’m so sexy in that picture!” Ty cried out pointing at the picture on the screen. Baron nodded, “Well kinda… But check mine out! Aren’t I cute?” Ty didn’t respond. “Hey look! Turns out my mom and dad both live in Pacifica!” Alex howled. Baron knew he was orphaned by Eucadian SS officers so it wasn’t a surprise to him. “Dang man I didn’t know your parents died…” Alex implied quietly. “Oh its okay they died when I was little so I don’t remember much of it.” Baron replied smiling, “Its alright.” Ty was eerily quiet. “You alright over there Ty? Or are you looking at some girl?” Alex laughed. Ty whispered, “My parents are dead…” The room got quiet. “What?” Alex replied walking over to the computer where he sat, “That can’t be… We just left a few…” While surely enough, under the picture of Ty’s parents in large red caps, the words “DECEASED” Caught Alex’s attention. “During the invasion of east Veridia, under unprecedented circumstances, the parents of Ty Lupus were killed in action…” Alex read quietly. Baron looked up at Ty, “Are you okay?” Ty didn’t react. “We should go…” Alex suggested turning off the computer. The three headed back to their house with Ty hanging around the rear.

Vikki entered the city limits of Pacifica headed to her summer home on the beach. She helped the Veridian prisoners escape while she herself escaped the Eucadian police who were trying to find her. she walked through the outskirts of the city headed for her house when she caught sight of a red-furred wolf digging through the trash. “Hello?” Vikki cried out trying not to scare the puppy. Trembling from weakness and startled, the wolf spun around and faced Vikki in preparation to attack. “No its okay…” Vikki smiled kindly to the puppy, “I won’t hurt you.” Vikki could tell by the patterns on the puppy’s fur that it was a Eucadian, “Are you lost?” The puppy replied, “No…” Vikki was surprised, “You can speak?” The puppy nodded. Vikki walked closer t

o it, “So…what’s your name?” “Flannery…” The puppy replied, “I’m Flannery.” Vikki was now standing in front of her, “What are you doing digging in the garbage?” Flannery looked away and then whispered, “I’m hungry…” Vikki smiled, “Well why don’t you come stay with me? I mean I won’t feed you garbage or anything like that…” Flannery was hungry so of course she agreed. The two walked down to the beach where her summer home awaited them. “Here we are! Just make your self at home and don’t forget to wash your paws before you eat. After you’ve been digging through that trash you probably have billions of germs on you!” Flannery washed her paws and then ate as if she hadn’t had a good meal in a while; which she hadn’t. “Goodness Flannery haven’t you had anything good to eat before?” Vikki questioned. Flannery looked up, “Not in a while…no…” She was interested in her, “So… do you have parents?” Flannery replied, “No… But I was adopted by Terry…” Vikki nodded, “So tell me about Terry…” Flannery was filled with rage, “She’s a mean b***h!” Vikki was caught by surprise, “Oh… She must’ve been really mean to you.” Flannery nodded, “Yep, she kicked me out and I stayed with Flora my friend and…” She paused. Vikki leaned closer to her, “And what?” Flannery didn’t want to tell her that she had accidently killed Flora, “Nothing…” later, Flannery had finished eating and Vikki gave her a bath. “I want to know more about you Flannery… You seem like an interesting little puppy!” Vikki exclaimed but Flannery was afraid of exposing herself, “Okay… what else do you want to know?” Vikki was overwhelmed with questions but she decided to let her rest, “Never mind… you can tell me in the morning.” Flannery was relieved, “May I sleep with you tonight? I’m afraid of the dark…” Flannery wasn’t really afraid of the dark but she wanted to take that opportunity to sleep with Vikki whom she was attracted to. “Okay sure!” Vikki replied almost excited as she was. The Two got into bed and Vikki drifted off to sleep. Flannery scooted closer to Vikki. She felt the same comfort she felt with Terry and Flora with Vikki. She was nice, outgoing and cute nonetheless. She nudged up against her fur and drifted off to sleep.

Back at Veridia, The three returned to the house to find everyone talking with Jasmine’s mother. They were all so fascinated by her experiences just about as much as Anne was about theirs. “So tell us about the invasion! Was it scary?” Jasmine questioned while the others listened. She explained everything that happened and everyone listened except Ty who walked off; Jasmine noticed him and followed cautiously, “Hey Ty what’s up? You okay?” Ty mumbled, “Fine, I’m fine.” Jasmine stopped, “Well you don’t look like your fine… what’s up?” Ty replied, “Nothing will you leave me alone…” She kept on him, “Listen Ty if you need someone to talk to my…” Ty cut her off, “Your mom right?! What makes your mother so damned special!? You’re all happy and showing off but you couldn’t care any less about everyone else!” Jasmine replied quietly, “Ty?” He snapped, “You think just because your mom showed up from the darkness she should be treated like some sort of queen or something!” Jasmine tried to counter, “Well if your mother appeared safe and sound from a prison camp how would you feel?!” Ty Got in her face, “Well I guess I would know considering my mother is dead!!” Jasmine stopped, “Wait…what?” Ty’s rage was increasing, “Yeah jasmine my mother is dead and so is my father! But you don’t care do you?!” Jasmine was hurt, “Ty I… I didn’t know…” He kept on her, “You really couldn’t care anyway! After all your mother is here and alive so who gives a damn about Ty’s?!” Jasmine was choked by tears, “Ty I’m sorry I didn’t…” But he kept on her, “I loved you Jasmine, you were nice and cute but now I see that you’re just a little careless b***h! Screw all of you!!” With that he stormed out of the house and left. “Ahh crap…” Alex mumbled and he and Baron went after him. Jasmine sat in Ty’s room crying. She was hurt by his words but mostly by the fact that his parents had died and she never got the chance to apologize. The whole house was silent afterwards. Meanwhile outside, Ty tried his best to conceal his true feelings. He tried not to cry but he couldn’t hold it in. Baron came soon afterwards and slowly sat beside him. There was an eerie moment of silence before he began to comfort him, “When I found out my parents died I was like seven and I was mad at everyone too.” Baron comforted Ty, “Being an orphan sucks, believe me, but sooner or later you find out that its just good to be…” Ty cut him off, “Why are you so happy all the time even though you know your parents are…” Ty paused, “Even though they’re dead?” Baron finished. Ty nodded. Baron looked up at the stars, “I like to think that somewhere they’re watching me…” Ty looked up at Baron and then back down. He lifted Ty’s head up to his and gently kissed him on the muzzle, “You’ll be alright.” Ty looked away, the tears still pouring from his eyes. Baron rested his head on Ty’s shoulder, “Do you feel better?” Ty shook his head, “I don’t want to go back… I don’t want to see her anymore…” Baron looked at him and then back at the stars, “You really like her huh?” Ty nodded. “Well this may sound funny but once I had a girlfriend.” Ty looked at him, “You did?” Baron nodded, “Yeah… she was a pretty border collie named Lassa.” Ty looked away, “What happened?” Baron frowned, “She cheated…” Ty looked at him, “That sucks…” Baron nodded, “But that’s beside the point. The thing is…” Ty pulled away from Baron’s comforting hold, “I’m not going back! I don’t want to see her or anyone else!” At that moment Alex came, “Wow there you guys are! Good god man you hurt jasmine bad…” Ty looked away, “I don’t care about her.” Alex and Baron were both silent. Ty then got up and headed towards the gate of Veridia. “Where are you going?!” Alex cried out but Ty didn’t reply. “We have to go tell the others!” Baron suggested running back toward their home. The two of them returned to a worried group. “Where’d he go?” Jasmine asked nervously. “He’s leaving, Veridia I mean…” Baron quickly informed her. She was struck with guilt, “I’ll go get him…” Everyone in the room fell silent. “Are you crazy? He’s pissed at you!” Alex exclaimed but Jasmine ignored him. “I’ll be right back…” She replied and then left.

Back at The lion HQ, Heather and the lieutenant met up at her house. “Sorry I was busy…” Heather apologized nervously, “You know how it is…” The lieutenant smiled, “Its alright don’t worry about it! I know how things are around here; all hectic and craziness…” Heather nodded politely. She seemed shy. “Are you okay?” The lieutenant examined her. She quickly looked up, “What me? No I’m fine…” The lieutenant smiled, “You sure? You seem a little nervous.” She looked back at him, “Well just a little… I’ve never been on a date before…” The two walked down the road toward the city while Katie and Victoria watched. “Why am I always stuck here watching you?” she mumbled to Victoria, “I never get to do anything fun…” Victoria ignored her and went on with her own business. “Hey maybe we should follow her…” Katie thought out loud, “We can see what they do… and if they kiss…” Victoria once again ignored her. Katie rushed out the house after heather and the lieutenant screaming, “Wait right there!” to Victoria who didn’t understand her. When Katie disappeared from view Victoria went into the forest behind Heather’s house heading towards a pond which she had seen there before. She was fascinated by the water and, being a small child, she wanted to play in it. Victoria approached the large lake that was dimly lit by the moon and stood by it. She gazed into its mysterious depths and slowly reached into it to feel the cold water. An excited smile spreading across her face, she reached deeper into the pond with two paws this time. She was overjoyed by the splashing water that reflected in the moonlight so she reached in even deeper. Suddenly, Victoria lost her balance and fell into the pond. It was deeper than she had realized and she couldn’t reach the edge. Victoria was in mass panic as the pond brought her up and then down under until her body cramped and she became exhausted. The current took her under, filled her lungs with water, and muffled her cries. It was too late to save her. Meanwhile, Katie followed Heather and Paul the lieutenant to a restaurant in the heart of the city. Heather talked about her experiences as a scout and with Razor the lion she original fell in love with before he died. “He sounds mean…” The lieutenant frowned looking at her. She nodded, “He was a little short-tempered but, I mean, he was still… Never mind…”Katie sat outside the restaurant for a few hours watching them talk before she finally was bored of it and decided to go home. She walked back to the house and much to her surprise the door was left wide open. “Oh crap…” She thought to herself as she ran inside, “Victoria!?” There was no response. “Oh god…” Katie whispered to herself. Possible places Victoria could have gone as well as millions of things that could have happened to her flashed in Katie’s head as she ran back outside. She searched the forest and the roads with no luck. As she returned to the house, Katie caught a glimpse of tiny paw prints in the mud that were headed into the forest where the pond was. She followed the trail to the edge of the pond where they stopped. “No…” Katie thought to herself. She had finally realized what had happened to the small vixen, “Heather’s going to kill me…”

Jasmine thought about her apology to Ty as she ran to catch up with him. It was a bit cold outside and, to make things worse, it was in the dead of night. In the distance, Jasmine caught sight of Ty standing at the gates. “Ty! Wait!!” Jasmine cried out running after him. He ignored her and continued walking. She caught up with him moments later after he left. “Ty listen I’m sorry for…” Jasmine forgot what she was going to say, “Uh…” He snatched away from her, “Just leave me alone.” Jasmine tried her best to calm him down with no luck, “I didn’t know about your parents Ty…” He ignored her. “Where are you going to go?” She shyly questioned. “Away from you.” He mumbled as he continued to walk. “Why do you hate me now all of a sudden?! Its like, just a minute ago you were in love with me and now you hate my guts!” Jasmine cried out. She was almost in tears. Ty stopped, “I don’t hate you…” he muttered. She looked up, “Well then why are you being so mean to…” Ty, cutting her off, quickly seized her muzzle in his paws and kissed her. “There. Are you happy now?” He whispered and continued to walk. Jasmine sat there rubbing her muzzle and astonished by his quick and gentle actions, confused. Ty disappeared in the night and Jasmine got up to follow him. Meanwhile, back at the house everyone had left to find Ty except Jasmine’s mother and her puppies. She sat watching TV and cleaning her puppies when, minutes later, a large wolf broke into a window. She got up, surprised and nervous “Who are you?” and the wolf looked at her with a spiteful smile.  He sharpened his claws and ran after her. Jasmine’s mother was pregnant so her reaction was too slow to avoid the Recon wolf’s claws from tearing through her face. She fought back viciously to protect her puppies when two more recon wolves climbed in. she was outnumbered. “Ty wait up!” She cried out running after him. “Do you… Do you really… like me?” She asked quiet and nervously. He nodded. “Oh… Listen about this whole… thing about your parents… I’m really sorry about that I…I didn’t know. If I knew I wouldn’t have…” Ty stopped her. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. They continued walking until they reached a river crossing. “So where are we going?” Jasmine whispered to him. He shrugged, “I just needed a walk…” All of a sudden they could hear an alarm blaring in the distance. “What the hell is that?” Ty articulated looking back towards the city. Jasmine shrugged, “I don’t know… Should we go back?” Ty shrugged. From the distance she could hear the familiar blazing of engines. “Oh god… Ty it’s the Eucadians! They’re…” Jasmine’s voice was drowned out by a large fleet of Eucadian bombers flying overhead headed towards Veridia’s mainland. A few minutes later she could hear the bombs exploding on the city below. “Oh god… We have to find the others!” she cried running back towards the city. “Jasmine wait!” Ty ran after her. The two had ran back to the city which was now lit up by bombs and anti-aircraft fire. The Veridian army had begun evacuating its personnel and the civilians when the bombs started to fall. Jasmine ran into the gates past the crowd of evacuating Veridians and headed back to their house. On her way, she had already caught sight of Alex and Baron who had Brianna and Princess Kya with them. “Jasmine where the hell are you going?!” Alex cried shouting over the bombs, “The place back there is being hit the worse!” Jasmine looked towards the palace, “Did my mother come out already?” He replied, “I think so…” All of a sudden a bomb hit right next to jasmine flinging a large piece of metal into her side and causing her to cry out in pain. “Come on!” Ty shouted to Alex as he lifted Jasmine up on his back. Alex, Baron, Brianna, Ty, Jasmine, and Princess Kya all ran towards the gates to escape the wave of bombers. “Where’s queen Akkura?” Baron cried out to Kya. “I don’t know… Last time I saw her she left to Pacifica…” She replied. They had reached the outside of the gates when a Veridian soldier stopped them. “This way!” He cried pointing to the right where large evacuation ferries were docked. A huge crowd of Veridian wolves boarded the ships which were headed to Pacifica. The group eventually boarded one of them and, from the boat; they could see Eucadian wolves advancing towards the awaiting Veridian army. Ty laid Jasmine on the floor of the boat, pulled the metal out of her, and licked the blood from her wound. The Veridian army far outnumbered the Eucadian Strike team so; as a result, they had successfully protected the city from invasion. Regardless, the city was still being bombed. All of a sudden, the air was filled with more engine sounds; this time, they sounded faster. “There they go!” a Veridian soldier cried out in excitement and pointed to the sky. They all looked up to see what appeared to be fighter jets shooting down the Eucadian bombers. The fighters swarmed like angry bees as bomber after bomber fell out the sky. The bombs stopped and so did the wave of Eucadian wolves. “Retreat! Retreat!!” The General of the Strike team cried out as the remainder of the invaders turned around and headed the opposite way. The Veridian wolves, with the help of the United States of Pacifica, successfully protected the city from Eucadian invasion. The Veridians were allowed to return to the city hours later. Inside, the city had received little damage and the palace wasn’t even hit. A few buildings had been torn down but the most important places were intact. Princess Kya returned to the palace and the group had returned to their house. When the group reached the house, which had been halfway destroyed, they were horror-struck by the scene. Outside the house, a few of Allue’s puppies lay lifeless from the bombs. When they entered the house, the rest of Allue’s puppies were found. All had been killed by the bombing waves. “They killed the puppies…” Brianna thought to herself as she continued to search the house. When she and Ty reached the back room they froze at the sight. “Oh no…” Ty whispered. Brianna was frozen in fear. There was blood all over the place that’s was obviously not from the bombings. In the middle of a puddle of blood, Jasmine’s pregnant mother lay lifeless with her six puppies. She had been killed by Eucadian reconnaissance wolves who invaded before the bombs fell. Her six puppies had been executed while Jasmine’s mother had been killed fighting back. It was obvious that there was more than one wolf attacking her. “God no…” Brianna muttered, “She had just come back…” Ty looked at her. “Make sure Jasmine doesn’t come in here…” Brianna whispered to Ty, “She’d be devastated seeing her like this..." Ty left to stall Jasmine while Brianna Observed the room. “B******s…” Brianna thought to herself.

Ty ran outside to where Jasmine, Alex, Baron and Allue’s last surviving puppy waited patiently. “Can we go in now?” Jasmine asked licking her wound. “I…I don’t think that would be a good idea…” Ty replied trying not to raise suspicion. “Why not?” She responded standing up. Ty looked away, “Its not safe…” Jasmine brushed past Ty, “I want to go see…” He quickly stopped her, “Jasmine you have to wait out…” She pushed him away, “I’ll be fine.” Ty grabbed hr tail in between his jaws and, in a desperate attempt to distract her, bit down on it. She cried out in pain, “What is the matter with you!! That hurt!” “Sorry…” He replied releasing her tail. “Why don’t you want me to go in there so bad?” Ty looked away, He couldn’t lie to her. “Jasmine its your mother…she’s…” Her eyes widened, “Ty… what… what happened… is she… is she okay?” She began to tear up. Ty shook his head slowly. “Is she okay Ty?” Jasmine repeated this time her eyes were clouded with tears. Ty looked away, “I’m sorry…” Jasmine ran into the house past Ty and Brianna to the room where her dead mother was. She froze. Her heart dropped and she was cold all over. “No….” she whispered to herself as she slowly inched towards her mother. Brianna came into the room, “Jasmine…” She ignored her. “I’m so sorry about her.” she apologized sincerely. Brianna sat down next to her and put her paw on jasmine’s shoulder. “They killed her…” She whispered to Brianna looking away, “They killed her…” Brianna nodded. Jasmine looked back at her mother who lay lifeless on the floor. Jasmine buried her face in Brianna’s fur and cried bitterly.   Ty walked into the room. Suddenly Jasmine let go of Brianna and turned to Ty. With tears soaking her face she cried to him, “They killed her Ty!! They…” Ty rested his head on her’s as she cried in his arms. Alex and Baron walked into the room. “Ah damn…” Alex whispered, “They killed her right when she came back too…” Baron was silent. A few hours later, medical technicians arrived to the district to gather casualties and treat the wounded. Jasmine refused to leave Ty’s arms. The group was relocated to another district that hadn’t been hit by the bombs. Allue’s last puppy, Katianna, sat quietly on the couch as the news began. She had lost her entire family throughout the whole journey but she was never affected negatively by it. “This is RNN News I’m John Patrick. The recent bombing and invasion attempt against Veridia ended only minutes before it began. Veridia’s elite army successfully held off the Eucadian Recon forces giving Pacifica enough time to launch its airborne fleet of anti-bomber aircrafts. The Treaty between Pacifica and Veridia is now being offered to the United Group of Imperialist lions or the UGIL. Their powerful army has proved to be a valuable asset to the combined allied strength of the Veridian-Pacifican pact. Also in the news today, The Caniridia War has reached a significant turning point leaving seventy-nine percent of the city in Eucadian control while the other twenty-one percent is held by the lions.” Katianna changed the channel. “Eucadia, already seeing that it’ll need some more strength before it attacks the south, will now spread out east and westward invading weaker nations to build its war factories and train its troops.” Another News channel explained. She turned off the TV. Katianna couldn’t stand to hear anymore about the war or the violence that continued to tear the world apart.

   
                    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

              

       

 

 

 

 

              

             

          

                               

 

 

               

     

      

 

        

                        

                

     

     

         

 

 

                       

  
             

                                  

                          

 

 

             

 

  

 

 

           

 

Author's Note

ignore grammar errors

Reviews

[deeps]

Wow! This took me a while to read but I loved it.
Wonderful descriptions and vivid imagery.
You left me clinging to my chair here.
I found this full of powerful action.
You are very talented I must say.