Domination DOG!

Hey, I'm just a dog in a destroyed world. Or I think it's destroyed. I've decided to fix everyone's problems so I get treated better. Fair enough?

Humans suck. They cause nothing but trouble, don’t they? That’s what I heard anyway. They were so uncomfortable with each other, that they ended up killing one another. So much, that there are no more humans! At least, not in the Ash. That’s the continent I live in, the Ash continent. I think the name came from the origins of why there’s no more humans. They had some big nuclear war with each other, and ended up dying. See, that makes no sense to me. I mean, I’m a dog, but I at least understand the concept of sticking with a group. I’m always with my clan. What, you don’t know what I’m talking about? Ok, lemme explain real quick as I get ready for breakfast.

Hello! I’m Blitz, Blitz the Dog! Technically I’m a wheaten terrier, but that doesn’t matter. In this world, you are the animal that you are. The specific kind of breeds doesn’t matter, not anymore. Apparently it did matter back then, with the humans, but not now. I’d say it’s simpler that way. So, I’m in a clan. The Dog Clan! Ever since the humans left, the animals took over! They each made clans, and took over certain pieces of land. So there’s the Dog, Cat, Monkey, Bird, and Wolf Clan! My clan’s base was built into the side of a mountain in a valley. The Birds occupy the open area down below us, which is annoying. It’s hard not to run into them when we go out hunting.

Do humans hunt for their own food? I was never sure of that. I have to hunt for my food all the time. Well, technically I’m not doing it alone. I have a squad that I hunt with! Yeah, every- Oops, hold on, I gotta brush my teeth real quick. You know it’s hard to do things like this, since I don’t have hands… But I do have this machine that automatically moves… The brush for me!... That way it is easier!... Too bad humans didn’t have self-automated washing rooms!... Agh, there I’m done. Now, can you leave me for a sec? I gotta whizz. Humans should know about privacy right? Apparently they didn’t give animals much privacy before, which isn’t nice! You think we don’t notice? Anyway, I’ll be fast.

Ok, I’m done. Thanks for waiting. Now then, one of my favorite times. Breakfast! If there is one thing you should know about dogs, and just any clan in general, it’s that we love food! Really, food is the most important to any of us. Because one, it’s hard to get. Two, it’s really tasty! Three, we need it to live! We also need shelter, which I got already in my clan base. And, a mate? I have my squad! We are friends! But, that’s not the kinda mate you’re thinking of, is it? Well, you see, I don’t have, or NEED that kind of mate. So I’m good!

I exit my room, walking down the hall, past all the different sleeping rooms for the other dogs. There’s gotta be at least four hundred or so different rooms. Each dog has their own, up until they hit about four years old. Otherwise they are with their family. Or if they get into a relationship they can move in with each other. Every animal only lives to about twenty or lower. No one has lived longer than twenty. Me? I’m Six! Does that sound  young to a human? It’s alright for dogs. 6/20, that’s ok right? Makes me old enough to live on my own, which is cool! Honestly, my family was kinda annoying me. Not in a bad way, no! Just, that for one, my mother never stopped worrying about me. Almost every minute I’d get questions from her.

“ Blitz, are you ok? You look sad, you look depressed, why are you so happy? How was doggie class? Did you make it into the squad yet? Do you have a girlfriend yet?” Were some of the things she’d ask me on literally a daily basis. Do humans have that issue with their parents? Now, I know that it’s good that she cared about me so much. But it didn’t stop it from being annoying. My mom was blue colored, like me. My dad, was a lightish purple. I say was, because they both past away. Don’t feel bad, I’m ok with it. I’ll admit, I did spend about a week or so just crying after I had found out. But now it’s fine. It’s not uncommon for the people you care about to pass away. That’s just the world we are in. It’s not so hard to take it in when you expect it regularly. You know?

I head down stairs, past the class rooms, tournament rooms, war rooms, kitchens and lounges. There is one particular door that I stop at, it’s labelled ‘ Feasting room 1.’ There are three total feasting rooms. There are four hundred dogs to feed, and about a hundred are aloud in each room. Except for the third, which allows for two hundred. That way it evens out. I enter the room. The feasting had already started. UUUGH. I always sleep in too late, don’t I? Why is that an issue? Well because the first servings of food always have the best content! Like freshly cooked bacon, eggs, hard boiled and scrambled, toast, bagels, waffles, french toast, etc. I LOVE it!

I quickly find a ground mat and sit down. We don’t have big tables like humans did. Why would we? Instead we have smaller tables with mats on the ground to sit. I grab a plate of bacon, eggs, and french toast with my mouth, and begin to munch down on them as fast as I can. That might sound disgusting to you, but to a dog it’s fine. We got people cleaning these! I whine a little, in joy of course. Honestly I didn’t stand out, since everyone whined and barked when they ate. It really was a great time, I could tell just by looking around. There were dogs telling jokes, stories, showing Youtube videos, memes. It was more social than the actual social times in the lounges. I always smile when watching them all, having fun. I could do  that, with other dogs, but I can never find my squad. I did once, but only once. But man, it was a fun time! But I’m content with just eating my food and moving on! We animals have simple tastes, normally.

I heard that humans had a knack for art. Making something for themselves and/or other people. That it gave them purpose, and meaning. Something to be happy about. That’s something that animals are just now experimenting with. We have like two authors in this clan. It must be hard to write words with your mouth. I tried to do that for this story, but it didn’t work. Unless you can read saliva, which I can’t. So instead I’m telling you vocally. That’s what most dogs do. We also have three artists. They’re cool. They mostly draw nature, and stuff from the human age. It’s messy, but still cool!

“ Yo dudes! Check this shizz out!” A dog behind me said. I turned around to see what was up. He was a white dog, wearing a blue scarf. He pointed his muzzle upwards, and his nose started to glow blue. Then, spikes of dark blue energy formed around him, floating in the air. He launched them upwards, and they hit the ceiling. He posed triumphantly. The dogs around him clapped, as much as a dog could anyway.

“ Nice Joseph!” Said one.

“ That was cool!” Another agreed.

“ Thank you thank you! I am one of the gifted! I can use the energy element! HA!” Joseph fired more energy spikes across the room. One spike caught onto a piece of toast a girl was eating. The toast ended up pinned against the wall.

“ AHH! Stop that!” The girl screamed. Joseph cringed.

“ S-sorry!” An officer came into the room. An older brown dog, wearing a police uniform.

“ Whoever is throwing elements around in here, stop now! Or you’re seeing the leader!” Joseph plopped back in his seat and hastily nibbled his bacon.

I laughed. This pup actually had a power, and he acted all ‘great, and ignorant’ about it. Wow. Lemme explain the whole power thing. Sometimes, with any animal, when they are born, they can be born with an elemental power. It’s rare, and it doesn’t happen often. But it still occurs. I heard that the humans discriminated a lot against supers, as they called it. Back in, what? 1947, I think. They were was a case of supers becoming illegal? That’s so dumb, honestly. What we animals do, and my clan, is we accept them! Our leader, Max, decided to let them, as long as they behave. If they didn’t they were banned. I think that makes sense. Power hounds can be useful! Especially if they have the special ability to find things. Some dogs can find things a lot easier than the rest of us. Their power being that they have increased smelling and awareness. These dogs were formed in the Elite Scouts Squadrons. There’s only three in my clan.

“ Dude, can I get some more bacon?” Asked a female pup to my right. She was a pink color, a small green ribbon on her head. An officer at the head of my table shook his head.

“ Sorry Ms. but I can’t offer any more to you. You’ve already had three whole plates. We can’t risk using too much of our supplies on one person. You must understand. This stuff is hard to come by.” That was true. Dogs have to sneak into enemy territory to get some of this stuff for us to eat. It’s not fair that people like her ask for more than they can reasonably get.
“ Oh, ok. I wish we had the Vaze. That would be nice.” The girl next to her turned around to address her.

“ That would be! Then we could eat all we want with no trouble!”
“ I know right?” They both giggled with excitement. Ah yeah, the Vaze. If there is one thing that any of us animals can agree on, it’s this. Trust me when I say we don’t agree on much. But this thing, this one thing. Oh boy! The legendary Vaze. Something left behind from the humans. It’s a handheld machine that lets the user create any kind of food they want! No kidding! We have proof! When the humans first left, they left behind five pieces of a map. From what we know of the piece we have, it leads to where the Vaze is. My clan doesn’t know where the other pieces are, and thus we can’t find the Vaze. They try to send the Elite Squadrons, but they don’t help at all.

I have a theory. I think that they other clans have the other four pieces. If we were to band together, than we would be able to find the map! Of course, that’s just a theory. Max has made it clear that he will never work with any other clan. The only time it happened, was two years ago. When the Dogs and Wolves risked it. It didn’t work out. All it did was nearly kill off each clan. They fought with each other more than for their goal. What was their goal? No one knows, and Max won’t say. “ It matters not, any more.” He’d tell us. I guess that was true.

Another officer came into the room.

“ All dogs who are scheduled for hunting on even days, you may enter the barracks and ready up with your squad!” He walked away. About half of the room got up and left, including me. This was what I mentioned earlier. One of the most important things that a dog can do, is hunt for food. You get with your squad, and scout out a certain area. You get as much as you can within in the time limit, and then come back. This is something you have to do. If you don’t then you are banned from the clan. I’m an alright hunter, though there are people much better than me.

I make my way through the mass of fluff in the halls. I slip through a door labelled as ‘ Squad Group Crayon.’ I get in, and put on my gear. A large black and yellow pack containing a tracking device, an emergency notifier, incase you get into trouble, and a small bit of water, for if you are thirsty, I guess. As I finished getting my stuff on, my other teammates walked in, and got their stuff on. Aile is a grey dog. Abe is an orange dog, and Blong is a tan dog. They’re great! Me and my men hunt all the time and we are always successful in bringing back food!

“ Did you guys see what happened in the feasting room?” Aile asked.

“ Which one?” Abe responded. “ I was in the second one.”
“ He means the first one.” Blong said, strapping on his pack. “ Some dog had an element. And he almost got in trouble in the process of showing it off.” Abe chuckled.

“ Seriously? Jesus. What a way of being a human.”
“ Hey man, that’s a bit much.” I said jokingly.

“ Yeah you’re right Blitz, my bad man.” We both laughed.

“ Alright. So how much food are we getting?” Aile asked.

“ Not much. Just a little bit, according to the officer I talked to.” Blong told him.

“ Ok, let’s see how fast we can do this!” I said.

“ Yup!” Abe agreed.

“ Guys, we need to be serious about this.” Aile warned us.

“ I know I know!” I exclaimed. Aile laughed and shook his head. He pressed a red button mounted on the wall, opening the door to the outside world. A piece of the wall rotated outwards. The fresh breeze, grass, and clouds flowed across my face. I inhaled it all.

“ Let’s go!” I said. We all ran out together.

I love doing this. Dashing through the open mountains. Their tall grey slopes towering above me. The grass brushing against my fur. The winding rippling around in my hair. It’s so exhilarating! My squad felt it too.

“ Bet y’all can’t beat me in a race to the trees!” Blong exclaimed.

“ Buddy you just signed your lost warrant!” I exclaimed. Blong and I boosted ahead, rushing along.

“ Should we follow them?” Abe asked Aile.

“ Why not. We can’t lose them.” Aile replied. They raced to catch up with us. But it was hopeless for them all. I was winning! I had gained the lead on Blong. The trees came up to meet me in fast forward. Blong got close to me, but I gave one last push, blazing past the first set of trees. I looped around, re-joining my team.

“ YES! Got ‘em!” I said, panting. They were all tired also.

“ We shouldn’t have… done that. We need to… be ready for food.” Aile said.

“ He’s right. Let’s take this seriously.” Abe agreed. I was disappointed.

“ Eh, fine.”

We began to scout around. I don’t know how humans figure things out, but for a dog it’s very complicated. We have to be constantly on guard. EVERY piece of land could contain food. You never know. We smelled around, our noses twitching. I inspected the ground, the tree trunks. We moved through the clump of trees, snuffing. For the first few minutes, we got nothing.

“ I got something!” Abe announced. We all rushed over to him. An Elite Squadron was passing by, to look for the Vaze. One of the long black hounds eyed us for a second before moving on.

“ Great job Abe.” I said.
“ Ok- I- sorry! I’ll keep trying.” We kept going.

I was sniffing the ground, when I picked up a scent. It it one of the euphoric feelings when you get a scent. I frantically looked around. To my left, peeking out from behind a tree, was a squirrel. It’s head disappeared back behind the trunk. I whispered to my team.

“ Look, I got squirrels. Behind there. Two of us go on each side and trap them!” They nodded, and we split. Aile went with me around the left side of the trunk. Abe and Blong went to the right. At first the squirrels were frozen in fear. They saw me and Aile first, and tried to run away. They were intercepted by my other two friends. One squirrel got bitten immediately by Abe. The other two were snatched up by me and Blong. We snapped their necks, and put them in our packs.

“ Nice! Let’s check for more, we got time.” Abe said. We all nodded, and continued. We left the clump of trees. Almost instantly I saw two mice down in the field, eating. I bumped Blong.
“ Dude, look. There’s mice, down there.” My friend looked to where I pointing, with my muzzle of course. He nodded.

“ Alright, I see ‘em.” He turned to our teammates. “ Yo guys! More prey!” He said. They turned to see.

“ Ok. What’s the strategy?” Aile asked. “ If we just charge in, they are bound to just run away faster than we can get them.” We thought for a bit. Sometimes, nothing but grass and mountains can be a real pain when you’re a dog.
“ Actually guys. I know what we can do.” I said. They all looked at me. I smiled. “ I’ll use Earth Crusher.” Abe shook his furry head.

“ No. We know from last time you can’t control it yet.”

“ Yeah.” Blong put in. “ Most dogs can’t fully control it until they are around eight years or so.”

“ And you’re only six.” Aile said.
“ Gee thanks I didn’t know my own age. I can do this. I’ll go easy, you gotta trust me!” I pleaded. Aile looked at the mice, they were getting ready to leave.

“ Agh, fine. We don’t have much choice unless we want to lose the food. Just be careful Blitz.” He warned. I waved my paw.

“ It’s fine! I know what we can do. You guys run in. Once they dip, I’ll do my thing.”

“ Your thing being what specifically?” Blong asked. The mice began to walk away.

“ Just go! They’re leaving!” I exclaimed.

My group ran ahead, unsure of what I was gonna do. I ran in with them, staying a bit further behind. Abe reached the mice first. He barked, startling them. They got close, but not enough. Dang the furry rodents, they shot away. Little grey balls dashing through the grass fields.

“ Blitz! Whatever you wanted to do, now would be good!” Abe said, panting. I smirked. I stopped dead in my tracks. I dunno how exactly to explain what I did. But I’ll try. Basically, I focused on myself. Concentrated all my excitement of the hunt, and formed the thought into a physical power. I told the earth what I wanted to happen, imagining it in my head. My friends watched the mice nervously, thinking that I wouldn’t be able to pull it off. Boy were they wrong.

As the mice ran, a huge pillar of solid rock erupted from the ground. They both smacked right into it, disorienting them. The pillar fell sideways, landing on top of their tails. I wouldn’t crush ‘em completely of course. The two poor creatures were stuck, unable to move. My comrades quickly moved in the for the kill. After the mice had been stored away into Blong’s and Aile’s packs, they came back over to me.

“ Hey! You didn’t almost smack us to death this time!” Abe said happily.

“ Yup. And that precision, you got their tails instead of crushing them whole. Was that on purpose?” Aile asked me.

“ Uh, I think so.” I said. Blong laughed.
“ Well ya did a nice job of it. If you keep doing that then this job will be a lot easier! Can you still throw chunks of rock?”
“ I could if I wanted to.” I exclaimed, chuckling.

“ Alright, let’s not give him ideas, we need to head back anyway.” Aile told us.

“ What ideas? I like ideas. We dogs don’t get enough ideas.” I said, walking with them back to the base. We ran back, a little slower this time. We ran past a big slope, that lead down to the open part of the valley. It contained a singular large tree in the middle of it. To our left, was another slope that gave way to an abandoned city. We never go down to either place. First off, the city is where the cats are, and that’s bad. And the open valley, well, I’d tell you why, but unfortunately they came to us.

The bird pack found us before we noticed them. Red and blacks. They swooped down, pecking at us. All four us tumbled over each, getting new cuts from talons and beaks. The bird pack swung back around in the air, coming down for another strike.

“ Crud… and we almost made it today without any encounters. Agh.” Aile mumbled. What sucks, is that every clan has a protocol. When you are out hunting, and you see a squad from another clan, you have to kill them. It’s simply too dangerous otherwise. My friends were slow to get back on their feet. They wouldn’t be ready when the second attack came from the birds. The aerial fighter’s eyes gleamed with murder and euphoria.

“ Alright guys. You stay low, I got this.” I said.

“ Blitz no!” Abe yelled.

“ It’s fine! I can handle it!”
“ No you can’t! You know what happens if you use your power too much!” He tried to tell me. But I wasn’t listening. I summoned Earth Crusher again. Pieces of the valley rose from the ground around me. I launched them at the birds. Two got hit directly. They went flying away with the boulders. One dodged, the rock smashing into the ground below. The fourth got its wing caught. It hit the surface, its wing squished under the boulder. The third one dove at me. I was gonna move out of the way, maybe do some cool trick to kill it, but I couldn’t. I flopped onto the ground, too tired to move. Luckily Aile leaped in front of me. He snatched the bird in his jaws, wrestling it to the ground. I heard the animal screech as its neck was snapped.

After he stored away that bird, and the other one under the rock, he helped me up with his muzzle.

“ Thanks… man…” I said, clearly out of it.

“ Jesus dude. You can’t overexert yourself like that.” Aile told me, helping me back to the base.

“ But isn’t it considered heroic?” I asked.

“ PFFT. By the humans maybe. Remember, they were idiots. Big Dumbie wumbies.” Blong said to my left.

“ Well. I guess.” Abe put in to my right. “ In a time of desperate measures, you might need to. But this wasn’t that serious Blitz. We were there to help.”
“ But… you guys were being too slow... “ I muttered.

“ No, we could’ve helped. But, regardless, good job man.” Aile said. I smiled weakly before falling asleep completely.

I woke up in my bed about two hours later. I get up really fast, rushing to the feasting room. Please don’t tell me I fell asleep, changed perspective again, and missed DINNER! I thought to myself. I enter the doorway, and breathe out a sigh of relief. The food had just been served. I grab a plate and sit down. Some good old patties, and potatoes! Apparently humans had these things called Hamburgers, which these things with meat, cheese and vegetables all stacked on top of each other! What I would do for one of those… instead we have this, a simple patty with sauce on it. I mean, that’s fine, just not as interesting. But I won’t hate on food. Anyone who does that is missing some marbles. As per the normal, I ate very quickly. As I was getting up to head back to my room to sleep some more, I was stopped in the hall.

“ Hey mate, you wanna play a game?” Blong asked me.

“ Now? What game?”

“ Hide and seek! Aile is already hiding. And, well Abe was apparently too tired to play. But still! You wanna join in?” He stuck out his tongue happily.

“ Well… I am tired. But sure. You’re on!” I decided.

“ Ok great! You’re it! Count to ten!” I put my face to wall. Or as close as I could get it with part of my face sticking out. After ten seconds, I began the search.

I snuffed all over my base looking for them. The officials questioned me twice. But they let me be when I said I was playing a game. As of recently, Max allowed people to play certain games in the base, to make life more interesting. I wasn’t the only pooch to be doing this either. I found three other dogs from different groups. It’s SO frustrating thinking you found what you were looking for, only have it be something else entirely. Can humans relate to that? Anyway, I found Blong in the lounge room, underneath a blue shelf.

“ Dang it. Did you find Aile yet?” He asked.

“ Nope. I’ll keep checking.” I said.

“ Alright. Well Imma head to sleep, see you in the morning Blitz!”
“ Ok, bye!” We left each other. I kept sniffing around. Sometimes my clan base has some odd smells man. Like dogs peeing or pooping where they shouldn’t be. Or kinds of candy and drinks spilled around and not cleaned up. And, what is this white sticky stuff? It doesn’t even have a smell? What? I asked an official what it was that came leaking out of a couple’s room.

“ Well that son, is something we use as apart of life. You don’t need to worry about it. I’ll talk to the dogs in there, straighten up their fun time. Any how, move along lil’ doge.” That only confused me more honestly. But I guess it ain’t anything to think about too much.

I eventually Aile in the kitchen. It wasn’t hard. As soon as I entered the room, I heard music playing from underneath the counter. I ducked under and checked.

“ Aile, listening to music out loud kinda kills the point of hiding doesn’t it?” I asked. He jumped, hitting his head on the bottom of the counter.

“ Ow. Yeah you’re right. This is just really catchy.”
“ It is! What is it?”
“ Do you know what this human thing is, Spongebob?”
“ No?”
“ Me neither. But it’s nice! Apparently it’s a remix of a Krusty Krab.”
“ Why krabs? Those things hurt!”
“ Don’t ask me! Humans have weird fetishes.”
“ You’re right. Anyway, I won. Good night.”

“ Ok, see ya.” We both went to our rooms to sleep.

I can’t wait to tell you about the dream I’m having! I know this may seem weird. But it was all about HOT SAUSAGES! Also no, we don’t call it hot dogs, that is disgusting. But really though! I was floating in a world of clouds, and there were nothing but sausages all around me! They all tried to run away from me, but it was helpless. I plowed through the group, stuffing as many as I could into my mouth. They tasted amazing! The look of terror on their faces were a joy also, and right before they entered my stomach forever! Then, once they were all eaten, the king rose from the clouds! A huge sausage. He had a scepter that shot out electricity from the top. The logistics didn’t bother me, since I was too focused on getting my dream meal! I dodged left and right, narrowly missing the beams. I leaped onto the king sausage’s stomach, and began to eat my way inside. He grabbed me, trying to squish me. It didn’t hurt since it was a dream and he was made of meat. I popped out of his grip, jumping onto his face. I dug my way inside of him, eating everything I could! I ate till there was nothing left! Man that was a lot of fun! I woke up, feeling satisfied. Then I realized I was still hungry. It never ends I tell you.

Thankfully breakfast solved that issue for me. I ate more than normal, for a special reason. I had a tournament today. The Doggie Takedown Tournament! It was this game where two dogs compete to see who is stronger at fighting. Humans supposedly did this to the death, which makes no sense. Why kill yourself over a game? What we dogs do, is we get suited up in an armor of foam, and attempt to rip it off of each other. There have been a few accidents in the past. One black hound got his eye ripped out on accident. But overall it’s pretty safe. I am in it for the second time. The first time I won, and I will this time too! I arrive at the tournament room early.

I waited for a good few minutes before everyone else finally filed into the room.

Then, Max came out. He announced to the audience what was happening while an officer helped me and my opponent get suited. The armor itself is pretty light, which is nice. The one I was fighting, was a female pup. She was a dark orange fur color. Her name was Lisa. We both stepped up into the ring to fight. The officers closed the gates behind us.

“ And everyone, the 34th DTT will take place!” Max exclaimed. “ Begin!” We rushed each other.

Lisa got me first. She barrelled into me, and we both rolled into the side bars. Good thing they are rubber. She clawed off my torso, and made for my helmet. I head butted her, causing her to roll off of me. I righted myself and  ran around her. She got confused for a second too long. I pulled off her tail armor. Lisa whirled around in an attempt to hit me. I leaped straight over her. The audience yelled in approval. I pounced onto Lisa’s back, taking off her torso armor. It was just the helmet left for her, and my helmet and tail. The feet don’t count apparently. I ran at her face. Lisa slide downwards, crashing through my feet. I fell to the ground, and my tail armor was ripped off. I got up, watching her aggressively.  

“ You think you can beat me?” She asked me. “ You know you can’t.”
“ OH, getting cocky are we? You’re the girl that reads manga all the time in doggie class 12 aren’t you?”

“ You mean Splatoon?”

“ Sure. That won’t help you here.”
“ Obviously.” We ran at each other again. At the last second, I swung my body around, hoping to hit her with my tail. It didn’t work out. Lisa saw this coming. She quickly reversed her movement, avoiding my strike. I ended up making myself dizzy from that spin. This left me open to getting my helmet pulled off. Which it was unfortunately. Lisa held it up in her mouth, and the audience roared.

“ And that’s the game folks! Come back next time when we have Lisa vs. Tison! And the time after that, when we have a redemption battle!” Max yelled.

I hopped off the stage. I drank from a water bowl an officer gave me. Lisa came up behind me.

“ Hey. You did well.” She told me. I licked the water from my lips.

“ Yeah? Thanks. You did too. You play it smart. Does manga help with that?” I asked.  She chuckled.

“ I dunno about that. I just did what came to me during the fight. Anyway, good luck in the redemption battle.”
“ And good luck to you going forward!” I said happily. She smiled, and walked away. Aile found me in the hallway.

“ So is Lisa the one?” He asked.

“ No sir she isn’t shut up.” I said.

“ You gotta get someone man.”
“ Why, you don’t have anyone!”
“ That’s true. But you know,  Marina is interested. I could if I wanted to!”

“ Ok good for you. I don’t have that, and I don’t care.”
“ Man, what you need to do is-” Before he could finish, the alarm went off in the base.

“ Warning. An intruder is in Dog Clan. An intruder is in Dog Clan!” Max yelled through the comms. “ Find and eliminate them now!” It’s really chaos whenever this happens. Because the halls explode with dozens of dogs swarming to find the enemy first. I don’t get what the rush is. I feel like all the chaos makes it harder to find the intruder.

Aile and I joined in the search. Some dogs hid in their rooms. Maybe because they were, scared, or had a family to protect. We weren’t so we ran around. We went past the kitchen. I heard something clatter in there. No one else was in there too. It was also where the food was. I entered, escaping the crowd out in the hall. I looked around. There were rustling sounds in the cabinets. I approached them carefully. I stood there for about a minute, waiting. Then the cat suddenly burst out and pounced on me. He pinned me to the ground. The blue cat clawed my face repeatedly. I couldn’t do anything, I was stuck. I didn’t want to risk using my powers and ruining the base. That’s gonna get you into serious trouble. The cat was thrown off me by an officer. Him and a second beat the cat till it stopped moving.

“ We caught it.” One said into his mic.
“ We have the all clear. Everything is all clear.” Max said through the speakers. The cop dogs helped me up.

“ Here, come with us. We’ll take you to the medical center.” I went with them. It was incredibly boring. Waiting for medicine to be put on me. Thankfully, it was over relatively soon.

By that point I was really tired. So tired that I didn’t even have any nice dreams. Dang it! Where’s the sausage? Anyway, that was my off day. Since every dog as an off day after their day of hunting. But now, the next day, thursday, I ready myself for another session with my squad. I use the bathroom, and eat breakfast. Then, I head into the Squad Group Crayon station to prepare. Once me and my friends are set up with our packs, we zoom out of our base, and into the open! I wonder what it would be like, to live without the aid of ancient tech left behind by the humans. Would it be harder? I dunno. It’s always to get stuff done for us. It would be nice if I could have some of that tech. But the officials don’t give you phones and computers until you’re at least twelve or older. I know of a couple dogs who never got the chance to use it because they died for whatever reason. That kinda stinks, but if it helps us then it’s okay. Together my team jogged through the grass, tongues swirling around in the wind. I hope humans understand the sensation of the tongue. If you don’t, lemme tell you it’s awesome! It’s one of those you really need to do yourself to understand. Just the feeling of the air rippling around it feels so nice! Again, I’m a dog, so you can trust that this is true.

We found our prey pretty easily. Three moles. Actually they found us. We were all running along, when the ground in front of me suddenly opened. My feet got caught in the three holes. I did an involuntary front flip, landing on Abe’s tail. He fell over too.

“ AH! Blitz what the heck was that for?!” He exclaimed, annoyed. We both got up as our friends came over.

“ Are you guys ok? What happened?” Blong asked.

“ They happened.” Aile said staring. We followed his gaze. The moles each got out and faced us. They bared teeth, and stuck out their claws. If they can cut through dirt, I didn’t wanna know if they could cut through us.
“ Alright, let’s take ‘em down.” I got into fighting stance, and so did my comrades. Two moles dug underground, and one just sat there, terrified. I pounced, easily biting off its small head. I quickly spat it out of my mouth, and snatched up the body for packing. The two other moles were probably still in the ground, trying to dig away.

“ Well now we can’t get them.” Abe said sadly.
“ Just wait man. They’ll be coming back. When they do, be ready.” I said. I began to focus.

“ Please Blitz…” Aile pleaded. The ground behind my friends split open, creating a tiny ravene a few feet long. The moles were completely exposed.

“ Now!” I yelled. Aile and Blong sprang, catching the small brown creatures. They stuck them in their packs, and returned to me and Abe. I closed the gap, panting.

“ You alright?” Aile asked me.

“ I’m fine. It’ll take more than that to knock me out.” I assured him.

“ Hey guys, I don’t wanna be the bearer of bad news but uh…” Blong began to tell us. We all followed his gaze. I nearly choked on mouse hair. The Cats had found us.

A squad of four Cats. They were standing on a hill directly across from us. Two of them were standing on the remains of a freshly killed bear. An easy kill, for such dangerous hunters. If there is one thing that dogs absolutely hate, its Cats. Their looks, their terrifying ability to kill. Their sly and mysterious way of doing things. If the protocol didn’t exist for any animal, it would exist for Dogs and Cats. Their colors were, one green, one red, one cyan, and one dark purple. The purple one eyed me, she had shining red eyes, like that of blood from a victim. She eyed us murderously.

“ That’s some power you’ve got, for a dog.” She said. Yes, I can understand her. Max trained us to know how the other clans talk. More on that later. “ You know it won’t help you right? You are our food now.” The Cats began to stalk toward us, their long tails swishing in the air.

“ Oh yeah? We don’t listen to Cats!” Aile yelled. “ Get ready guys, we’re gonna hit it big time!” My friends cheered. The Cats shot toward us, moving with impossible speed. We ran up to meet them.

Aile struck first. He Clawed the red one in the face, wrestling him to the ground. He kept striking repeatedly, spilling blood onto the ground. The red cat kicked upwards, right into his crotch. Aile recoiled, giving the red cat time to get up. The cat longued, biting Aile’s face. He held on with his teeth. Digging his claws into his torso. Aile tried to throw him off, but it was futile. He sank to the ground, and stopped moving.

“ Aile!” I yelled. I ignored my other friends, who were also getting beaten by the Cats. I ran at the red cat. As I neared him, I summoned a block of earth. The earth chunk smashed into the cat, crushing him down to ground. Nothing was left but blood. I sniffed Aile. He was alive, but dying quickly, I had to end this fast. I looked around, Abe was being beaten by two cats at once. The purple, and green one. Blong had just finished the cyan one, but he could barely walk he was so cut up. Blong looked at me desperately. I knew the message: Help Abe. He swapped places with me, covering Aile. I dashed over to Abe.

The Cats saw me coming. The green one jumped up as I tried to bite her. She landed on me, cutting into my back. I barked furiously, enraged. I threw myself to the ground hard, sending the cat tumbling. As she got up and ran at me again, I summoned another pillar of rock, punching her into the sky. As she came back down, she fell on top of me again. She grabbed my neck, ready to slit it. I wouldn’t that happen. The green cat was knocked off by another boulder. I quickly ran over, biting her face. She didn’t get up. I looked back at Abe, who was pinned on the ground by the final purple Cat. The Cat smiled maniacally, about to kill my friend. Abe’s face showed nothing but fear. He was actually crying. The cat wasn’t even on him. She was holding him down with some sort of power. Abe glowed a faint purple. I was feeling really tired by this point, my power overused, but I didn’t care. His life was more important. I summoned two more boulders, charging the purple cat. She saw me, taking attention off of Abe, who could barely move. I ran at her, and she ran at me, picking up sticks from a nearby tree, to impale me I guess. We both had the intention of taking the other’s life.

Then we stopped. I halted just as I got to her. The boulders dropping down, hitting the ground with a thud at the same time as her sticks. Thankfully she ceased moving also. We stood there, so close we could practically touch muzzles. We were both cut and bleeding, panting. We looked each other in the eyes. I saw her red eyes shining. Like those roses that grow in the spring. Humans said that roses were a symbol of something. Something…. That began with an L. We stood there, just looking at each other. This also reminds me of a certain feeling that is described in human stories. What is it, blushing? No, that’s a reaction. Um, romance? OH GOD. That’s not what I’m saying alright?!..... Right? My mind became muddled in that moment. I had forgotten about everything. The fact that I was breaking my clan law escaped me. I just wanted to keep looking into those red eyes.

“ W-what are we doing?” I asked softly.

“ I-I, you-” The cat choked on her words. She ran away before I could say anything more. I watched her disappear down the slope that lead to the city.

Blong and Abe came up behind me.

“ Hey man, are you alright?” Blong asked me. I continued to stare where the cat had been.

“ Uh… What is happening?” I asked to no one in particular.

“ Man, that’s love.” Abe told me weakly.

“ No!... I mean, it can’t be.” But I couldn’t shake the feeling.

“ Probably not. I mean it is a cat. Here, you should come back with us, and maybe Max will be easy on you.” Blong said.

“ No. I have to follow her.”

“ Are you insane?” Abe asked. “ If you go there, you are banned! You realize that right?”

“ I know but, I have to. Just please. Take Aile back, and go to the base. I’ll be there later.”
“ Blitz, think about this.” Blong pleaded.

“ Just go…” My friends hesitantly left me, carrying Aile home. I was feeling more tired than usual, but I wouldn’t stop. I move forward, slowly making my way down the slope. I enter the city, knowing the danger, and accepting it. All I have on my mind is, I need to see that cat again.

It was night time, which made things a lot easier than they should’ve been for me. I snuck around the city, making sure not to get caught. To be completely honest, I’ve never been here before. I had always wanted to, maybe catch some cats and bring them back. Any dog who brings back even one cat gets high recognition. But, I never did. Mainly because my team told me not to, and I was scared. Back then that had been reason enough for me. So then, what was going through my mind now? My squad had again told me not to, and I was still scared. My heart was pounding so much it was practically coming right out of my chest. But, I kept going. I slowly made my way down old streets, black with the night. Water dripping from old vents and out of sewage ways. Burnt out lights hung over me, watching me. Like the judgement hanging over me, ready to punish me for my crimes. Brick buildings rose up around me, red, white, and grey. It felt exactly like how a nightmare would. Trapped, unable to find a direct exit or way of feeling safe. I didn’t feel safe, and I shouldn’t have been allowed to. I was breaking the law, by being here. If I didn’t die here, then Max would probably allow for it. Not only did I spare a mortal enemy, but I am trying to go to her, in her own base. What kind of a dog was I?

I tried not to let those thoughts bug me. I heard that humans suffered a lot from mental illnesses. They thought too much about things, and that led to dangerous ideas, and terror. Dogs normally don’t have that kind of fear. We live simple lives, thanks to Max. He keeps us on our schedules, and no one complains. So, am I complaining? Does that make me an odd one out? Possibly. But hey, being different isn’t bad is it? I never thought so. I always thought that being how are you are and doing what you want to, is the best way. Did humans know that? Probably not. They always killed each other too much. I guess they never had the chance to make up and accept one another for what they were, whatever they were. Just because I’m a dog doesn’t mean I don’t think. I may not think as much as a human does, but I can do it.

I actually did know where I was going. One of the officers had shown us a map of all the clans once, about a year or so ago. It revealed that the Cats make their exact housing in the largest building in the whole city. I climb up the stairway of a building, reaching the top. I look around, see if I can find it. I see it. A skyscraper, I think it’s called. Yeah, a silver building shooting upwards toward the heavens. How did humans even build that high? I dunno, but the Cats took advantage of it, that is for sure. Once you know where it is, it’s not too hard to get to. It is in the center of the city, right next to this large white construct. I have no idea what that is. I step back a bit, ready to jump. I rush forward, leaping over to the next building across from the one I was on. I almost slipped off, but I climb back up, no worries.

I continue quietly to the skyscraper. Man I’m lucky, not encountering any Cats. I climb down another staircase, and move toward the building via the streets. I stand, looking all the way up it. Wow, is it large. I gulp nervously. Can I really do this? How am I gonna find the Cat? She was dark purple, red eyes, black feet, now that I think about it. I can do this. I move my front left paw to enter the building, when I hear a trash can getting pushed over.

“ Oh sho-” I mutter stupidly. I practically bolt it behind the nearest corner, peeking over to see who was there. Two wolves were scouting around. Both white and black. Eyes orange and dangerous. They’re teeth showing, colored with crimson. They stalk around the skyscraper. They look inside, then continue past me and down the street. I almost have a heart attack. Seriously, they were this close to seeing me! Well, you can’t see me, but still. You get it. I very cautiously enter the sky tower.

One thing about us dogs, is that we have terrible eyesight in the dark. Cats see better in the dark then we do, I think. What this means is, I tripped everywhere I went. I moved across the front lobby, stepping into a table, backing into a trash can, then walking muzzle first into the wall. It’s a miracle that no one heard me. I reorient myself, hopping up onto the front desk. I turn on the lamp light, revealing a book containing all the rooms in the tower. Including the names of the Cats who inhabited each one. Dang these Cats, and their better handwriting! Wait, but I didn’t know her name. Ugh. I saw in the very back of the book is a description of each cat also. I guess that could help. I check for what must be like an hour or so. I dunno even know what time it is now. Finally I see one that matches who I saw. Dark purple, red ruby eyes, black feet. The name was, Mezasokuri.

...What. What kind of a name is that? Why not Jeff, or Steve. Or Tisha. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against different names. You remember my speech from a bit ago right? I’m okay with different. That just caught me off guard. So, then, I check for that name in the list of rooms. There! I found it! Second floor out of ten. Meza’s room. Meza, nice name. A-anyway, I close up the book, turn off the light, and head for the stairway to the second floor.

I’ll admit, I jumped many times on my way up there. I was being paranoid, probably. Since I can recount at least three times I thought that a cat was opening a door or was following me. I actually ended up attacking what I thought was an enemy. All that actually happened was I forcefully said hello to the wall again. My nose didn’t appreciate that. Good thing Cats are hard sleepers! Hehe… yeah. I do manage to reach the room. Number 24. A good even number. I stand there, staring at the door. The cat entrance was at the top of the door. Normally doggie holes are at floor level, thank you very much. Why do Cats have to be so agile? I try to make the jump, only to fall to the floor. Alright, I need a different strategy. I look around for something to help me. I notice a large vacuum sitting outside another door. I pull it over by the wire in front of Meza’s room.

I position it just right. I hop on top of it, almost losing my balance. Just before I fall off, I push off, grabbing onto the bottom of the Cat hole with my wrists, barely hanging on. The vacuum hits the ground, thankfully not making any noise. I climb in, and tumble down to the floor below. Well, that worked, somehow. Her room was, basic. I guess. A kitten bed to my right, two food bowls and a water bowl to my left, and a shelf against the back wall. It was nicer than my place for sure. Though for a human it seemed basic, I dunno. At first I don’t see anything. I move in slowly, checking around for my… prey? No, that’s not the right word. I dunno, for Meza, I guess. I didn’t realize she was sleeping until I stepped on her tail. I recoiled in alarm and so did she. Cats can jump really high man! She turned on a small lamp next to her rug that I hadn’t noticed before. We stared at each other, again. We stay like that for about two whole minutes. My mind was mushy. Meza ended up speaking first.

“ Y-you are not, a cat. Are you?” She asked. This seemed like a dumb question to me.

“ No. I don’t think so.” I speak up. “ Though I basically had to be one in order to get up here.” Meza tilts her head, smirking a small bit.
“ Ok, you’re a dog then?”
“ Yeah… is that bad?” Meza sits down on her rug.

“ Well… Normally it is.” She sighs.

“ Are you ok?”
“ I’m fine. Why did you come here? What reason could you possibly have for entering an enemy’s territory?”
“ Oh, well...I, uh…” I look at the ground. I didn’t know what to say. I had run this thought over in my head many times at this point. Whether you know about it or not, I did. “ We-we first saw each other, out in the mountainous valley. I uh, couldn’t kill you.”

“ Why?”

“ I guess because something in me told me not to. Like if I did, then I wouldn’t be happy. That if I stuck with you, I’d be a lot happier than if I hadn’t. That probably makes no sense.” I readied for her to attack me, or say something aggressive, anything that she should do to me. But she did nothing, just kept on sitting in front of me. I’m not sure what disturbed me more. The fact that she wasn’t doing anything, or that she could at any moment.

“ Sense? I guess that does make no sense.” Meza wipes her face with her right paw. “ But I kinda felt something also. Same idea as you were saying. I should’ve killed you.” She slumped down onto the rug. “ But I didn’t, for some stupid reason. I just didn’t want to.” She looked past me, and at the wall. I had no idea of what to do at this point. What was I even doing here? I wasn’t sure what the heck I even wanted to accomplish. I fiddled a bit, then sat down myself.

“ Do we have to fight each other?” I asked.

“ Hm?”

“ D-do we need to kill each other? I know our clans tell us to. But if we aren’t gonna be mean to one another, then can’t we just be, with each other, and not be forced to murder?”

“ You know it’s illegal to say that.”
“ I know. I might as well say it now. Since you’ll probably end up killing me any second now.” Meza let out a laugh.

“ You’re assuming that aren’t you?” She sat up again. “ If I don’t kill you, do you promise to leave, right now?”
“ What? Why?”
“ If you get caught here, you’ll be murdered on the spot, no mercy. I don’t wanna make things worse for myself also…”
“ Worse how?”
“ It doesn’t matter for you. Just go!”
“ W-what if I say no?” Meza stared at me. I glow a faint purple, and get lifted into the air. I struggled to get free, but nothing happened. I couldn’t even move. Oh great. I get to move perspective of this story a little bit but not my body. FUN. I thought to myself. I resort to the one thing a dog can rely on.

I give Meza the puppy stare, eyes wide and adorable. She looks at me confused for a second. Then she chuckles, dropping me back to the floor.

“ I can just end you now.” She says.

“ F-fine, then do it!” I exclaim.

“ What? You’re actually gonna let me? How stupid are you?”
“ Dumb enough to come here, but not dumb enough to leave you.”  I swear I saw her cheeks turn red. We can do that? I didn’t know.

“ Can you just leave. If I’m crazy enough, I might just find you again.”

“ Wait what does tha-” Before I finish talking, I’m grabbed by psychokinesis and chucked back out through the cat hole in the door, and land in the hallway. “ Meza! Please, we can do something else, but not separate!” I said loudly to the door. No response. “ Fine. But I might be coming back, since I’m dumb enough to do that.” I swear I hear a laugh behind the door.

I left the skyscraper a lot sadder than I did coming in. I honestly wouldn’t care if a cat saw me. Not much even happens at this point. I just head back home, thinking about what Meza had said. She might find me? Is she coming to the Dog Clan base? That would be suicide. Maybe out in the field, but how? It’s very vast, and hard to find just one specific thing out there. I half hoped that going back to my clan would allow me to feel better. Maybe I could get some nice dinner, and sleep on my warm rug!

I enter the front door of the mountain base, and am immediately stopped by two officials.
“ Blitz. Max wants to see you.” The one on my left told me.

“ What for?” I ask, already knowing.

“ He didn’t tell us what for. Just that it’s urgent.”
“ Alright.” I followed them to the head office.

Max is sitting in his chair. He can barely fit in that thing he’s so big. I’m not tryin’ to be mean, but he is a big boned doggie. He is a dark brown, and very furry. You can’t even see his eyes most of the time. I dunno how he can see anything, but good on him for doing so, I guess. Turns out, I ain’t gonna be liking him for much longer. The officers close the door behind me. I stand, and face him as he watches me with outrage, a top his large brown glossy desk.

“ Blitz. I have reports from Squad Crayon that you let a cat live. And then you went to the city to see that cat. Son, tell me why. Before I do anything. Please, explain why.” I was sweating so much, I hope he didn’t think I was sticking my tongue out at him.

“ W-well sir. I uh…”
“ Spit it out Blitz!”

“ Alright! I dunno sir, I really don’t. I was going to kill her, I really was! Then, at the last second, I had this feeling. I really did! It just told me, not to hurt her. I dunno it was weird.” I explain to him what I had felt, and the same thing I told Meza. You already know the deal anyway. Max sighs deeply.

“ Biltz. Jebbus, you don’t understand, You cannot feel anything for another Clan! They are vile disgusting creatures! You can’t and will not feel anything for them!” He started to get very pissed at me. “ I cannot even fathom why you would do something like this! It is absolutely terrible, and against what it means to be a dog. Perhaps you aren’t a dog then. If that is true, then GET OUT!” He literally screams at me. “ Leave! Go be a cat! I don’t want you here anymore! You know the laws we have. I can’t risk endangering all of Dogs!”
“ I-I understand sir.”
“ Good. Then be a good dog, and leave!” Then, I leave the base forever. I don’t even say goodbye to my friends. They were probably asleep anyway.

I walk away from the mountain side. It’s late at night. The night sky spread above me. The stars twinkling down, laughing at my misery. I can barely even see in front of me. I don’t know where I’m going. I just walk. Hoping that maybe I’d find something that would help me. Get me to prove to my brothers that I am still useful, and not a traitor. Am I a traitor? I don’t even know. Dogs disobeying the law is pretty unheard of, so who knows. All I know is, to keep moving forward. Forward, even though I was, hungry, and tired. I realized that I hadn’t had dinner. Max wouldn’t offer it to someone who was just hurting his Clan. Why would he. I reach a slope, and almost fall down. I turn back, and head the other direction. I hadn’t really known sadness up until this point. Is it weird for a dog to be saying this? It might be, I don’t even care.  I did feel sad now. It was surprising. I had told myself, promised my parents, that I would never do anything bad. I said to them, that I would be a good dog. To show the world how special I was. They believed me. Do they still believe in me? I betrayed them, ripped apart that promise, just like I had ruined the bond I had with my own clan. No one there would wanna be with me any more. If they see me out in the wild, they are probably gonna kill me. I keep moving, water dripping from my eyes. That’s crying isn’t it? Another new feeling.

Now, what happens next, pretty much made the entire night for me. I move toward a clump of trees, staring at the grass under me. When something drops down on top of me. We both go tumbling for a few feet. We end up in an odd position. I’m on the bottom, and Meza is slumped over me. Yeah. She barely stuck out in the night time.

“ It is you! Gosh I thought I wouldn’t find you!” She said. I had no clue what was happening. I just knew I couldn’t be more relieved, for some reason.

“ M-Meza? Mezasokuri is that you?”
“ Yeah it is!” Why did she sound so happy to see me? “ Are you ok? You seem like you’re crying.” Maybe it was because how much better her eyesight was compared to mine, and that my tears were dripping onto her paw.

“ Oh. Uh, well no. I uh, just got… kicked out of my clan.” I said, trying to control my crying. I’m not too sure if it was working.

“ You did? That’s not a surprise.”  Meza said.

“ Not a- ok look. I thought that maybe I would be given a second chance alright?”

“ But obviously you weren’t. What are you trying to do now?”
“ I dunno. It doesn’t help my thinking process when you are standing on top of me.”

“ Well, from what I can tell, it seems like you didn’t have any plans.” Meza steps off of me, smiling a little bit. I get up and right myself.

“ I guess I didn’t. I have no clue what to do now.” I looked over to Meza, it was harder to see her in the night light, or lack there of I suppose. “ But then again, what are you doing all the way out here?” I swear I see her flinch.

“ Remember how I mentioned that something worse could happen to me back in the Cat Base?”
“ Uh huh?”
“ Well after you got out somehow, I was banned from my clan also.”
“ I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Should I?”
“ No, you shouldn’t be. Lexiandra sentenced me for running away from a another clan, and for letting you into my room and not killing you there. I knew I should have killed you.” I could feel the air pressure increasing, if only a small bit.

“ I see, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even come there in the first place.” Meza waved her paw at me.

“ It’s fine. We don’t have to be in a clan do we?”
“ We… don’t. I guess.” I wasn’t too sure of what to say to that. I mean it wasn’t completely off of what I’d been thinking about. But I still wouldn’t expect to hear it from another clan member. Then again, I wouldn’t expect to be with another clan member in the first place. And look at me!... Oh boy. “ Well, then what exactly are your plans?”
“ I dunno. I’d go and live out in the wild.”
“ Isn’t that dangerous and stuff?”
“ It probably is, but that’s fine. We are able to handle it you know!”
“ By ourselves?”
“ Yeah by ourselves. I’ve been out here myself quite often, it’s not as bad as you would think.”

“ Oh, well I guess so. I could use your help with surviving…. If only if you wanted you to of course.” I added quickly. I couldn’t really see her face in the night, but I could sense she was smiling.

“ I think I could work with that. If we are however, I need to know your name.”
“ You didn’t know? Oh. Alright, it’s Blitz.”
“ Blitz? I feel like that suits you.”
“ It does?”
“ Yeah it sounds hasty and stupid. Like you.”
“ Hey! How would you even know me?”
“ Well just from going off what you’ve done around me so far. First impressions in other words.”
“ And I failed that test didn’t I? This feels like Doggie Class all over again. Yay.”
“ Heh, we’ll see how you hold up.” Meza turns so that her behind is facing me. “ Alright, if we are gonna stay alive, we’ll need food. Let’s start with some milk. Easy.”

“ Wait why milk and how is it gonna be easy?”
“ If you would stop asking questions and just follow me, then you’ll see.” Meza began to run away. At this point I had a choice, either follow her, or go off on my own. I figured the chances of me surviving on my own were lower than negative, so I followed her instead. Though I’m not too sure if those chances are any higher honestly. Guess I’ll find out.

Really I didn’t feel like going back to the city, but that’s where we went. It was all I could do stay on Meza’s trail. To be able to barely see her in the darkness was a blessing in my conditions. Thankfully she didn’t climb up any buildings or anything. Then I’d be in trouble, more so than already. We actually went past the Cat Clan skyscraper, which surprises me. I thought for sure we would be going there, so that I could be locked up and eaten. Instead we went past that, heading down a few damp alley ways.

“ Hey, Meza.” I said softly. “ Do you know why these streets are so, uh, gross?”
“ I dunno. The humans probably. My cats have been looking for ways to clean it up for months, and they still haven’t found anything. Whatever they do find is something we don’t understand yet.”

“ Oh, I see. Well I hope that they do find something to clean it up someday.” Meza stops in front of me so abruptly I almost bump into her.
“ What?”
“ Huh?”
“ Why did you say that?”
“ Say what?”
“ That you wanted hope for us?”
“ Because I do? I can’t say nice things about another clan?” There was a pause.

“ Y-you can, but it’s not something that is said very often.”
“ That’s pretty dumb.”
“ Maybe it is. But we should really shut up for now. Don’t wanna wake up anyone.”
“ Oh right! Sorry.”
“ It’s fine. Just dangerous.”
“ Sorry.”
“ Stop talking!”
“ Ok ok, so-” I closed my mouth before I got thrown into the sky.

After another alleyway, Meza did in fact climb up a building. This lead to some anxiety on my part, since I thought I lost her. But I ended up seeing her at the top so it’s all good. She was looking at something across the way. I walked up next to her. It was the white building I’d seen before. Somehow it kinda glowed in the night, making it easier to see than anything else. A contrast of colors.

“ That’s a pride of the Cats.” Meza told me. “ They treasure this thing so highly, I feel like it means more to Lexi than the actual base does sometimes.”
“ Why, is that the-”
“ Milk Maiden. Yes. We call it that since it serves us with an unlimited supply of the stuff. Thanks to the humans.”
“ Oh so it’s basically your own Vaze then?”
“ It isn’t that strong, unfortunately. It only gives us liquid milk. The Vaze would still be very handy.”
“ Ah, yeah I see.” I considered this for a moment. I started to form a stupid plan. Meza made like she was gonna jump.

“ I’m gonna go down there and collect some milk.” I just now noticed that she had a pack on. A different one than what I was used to. It was a travel pack. With multiple holes for items to be put in. Or food. “ Do you wanna come or stay here?”
“ Uh. I can come down. Is that place uh, guarded?”
“ I don’t think so. Not this late anyway. Come on.” She leaped off, landing on top of a light post, and riding it down to the ground. Why are cats so athletic? I just landed in a pile of garbage.

“ Are you ok?” Meza asked as I limped toward her.
“ Oh yeah. Trash bags don’t feel that hard surprisingly.”
“ You know what else isn’t hard, now that I notice it?”
“ Hm?”
“ Us being seen if we make too much noise!”
“ Oh! Sorry!”
“ I swear if you say that one more time…”
“ OK ma’am I won’t.” She let out a chuckle.

“ Just shut up and move.” Together we walked toward the Milk Maiden.

It pretty much consisted of  a gigantic white tube with a much smaller control module on the bottom of it. I have no idea how Meza could see with barely any light, but again, cats have better eyesight than dogs! While she fidgeted with the controls, I sat down on the pavement. Jeez, it was cold! I hadn’t expected that. Do humans know what cold things feel like? I was actually tempted to just fall asleep right there and then. My eyes kept going heavy, and I almost closed them once. But I stayed awake somehow.

It only took Meza about three minutes to get two full bottles of milk. She stowed them away and faced me.

“ Ok, let’s go back out of here. Blitz!” I stood up quickly.

“ HUH? Oh right. Let’s go.” Meza sighed and started to walk ahead. I followed. Then something slammed into me. A wolf and I went tumbling to the side. Once again I ended up on the bottom, except now there was an angry beast on top of me. I couldn’t see very well, but I could hear him, and smell him. Yuck did his breath smell bad! The wolf cut into my chest, causing blood to drip down my body. I was too shocked to summon my powers. I would’ve died if Mezasokuri hadn’t saved me. This honestly did surprise me. Why would she let me live? Wouldn’t it be easier for her if I wasn’t there? Regardless, she picked up the wolf, and slammed him into the side of a wall. Some bricks fell away as the wolf became dazed. She slammed him again, then again, over and over against the wall until the wolf was nothing less than a red mess. The body dropped to the ground next to me. I got up.

“ Wow. How do you do that?” I asked.
“ My element. I was a special one when I was born. Let’s me do that kind of stuff.” Meza came up next to me.

“ That certainly makes fighting easier, it seems to me.” I said.

“ It does. However it is tiring.”
“ You’re telling me? I know.”

“ Well, are you ok?” I felt my new cuts sting me.

“ I guess so.” I flinched from the pain. “ Ok maybe not that much.”
“ We should get you healed. But we can’t.” Meza looked at the wall, dark blood making its way downward. I decided now would be a good time to tell my plan.

“ Hey uh, I have an idea. But it might sound dumb, but I’ll you anyway.”

“ What would that be?”
“ We can go get the Vaze!”
“ Excuse me what.”

“ No really. We can get the five pieces of that paper from each clan, starting with our own since we would know where it is! Then, we can get the other three, and find the Vaze! No clan has worked with another clan, so we would be the first and it might give us an opportunity! Plus, you know that the Clan leaders have to hospitalize us if we beat them, you remember?”
“ I didn’t know that was still in place.”
“ According to my leader it is! Also, once we have the Vaze, we can bring it back to our leaders, and it will for sure bring us back in! We would have done something that no one else would’ve done.”

“ You do realize these chances are very small.”
“ I know. But if we are gonna be in the wild, then we might as well try to do this! It’ll be worth it. Plus, it seems to me that you are knowledgeable with surviving, so I want your help, then we can do it!” Meza said nothing for a good two minutes. I was worried she’d say no.

“  This is a very bad idea. But why not. It’s not like we have anything better to do so. I guess I’ll go with you on this.”
“ Yes, thank you!” I began to feel happier than I ever had so far. This could certainly go somewhere. “ Then to begin. Our clans pieces. Can you get yours?”
“ Probably yeah. You?”
“ I know where it is, in Max’s office.”
“ Are you sure you are smart enough to get it?”
“ Oh come on, have some faith in me yes I can!”
“ Alright ok. We’ll each steal from our bases. Then what?”
“ How about in the morning we meet at the slope that connects this city and my mountain range?”

“ Ok, got it.” Meza makes to run to her base. “ And, be careful. I dunno how I feel about you dying.” For some reason this made my heart flutter. Weird.

“ Yeah, and same with you. Stay safe, and, see you tomorrow?”
“ Sure.” She ran off. I stared at the wolf’s body, for a few seconds. I dashed off to my Clan base, preparing myself to steal from my own kind.

The front door was locked, which made sense being so late at night. I walk over to the side of the mountain that my squad usually emerges from. I poke around the rock wall with my nose, looking for something. If you look closely, you can see a vague outline of the door. Normally any animal walking by wouldn’t notice it. You’d have to know it’s there. I feel around the right side, and come in contact with a small rock, jutting out of the wall. It’s been painted to look like the rest of the wall, so again, no one would notice it. I take hold of the ovular rock with my mouth, pushing it inward relative to the wall. The rock is pushed inside, and I hear a series of whirring and creaking come from inside of the cobblestone surface. I can only imagine how hard it must’ve been for the humans to craft such mechanisms. I know for a fact that I don’t get a single part of how these things work. I’m pretty sure most animals don’t. Only a few have come close to figuring it out. And usually they get stumped by how one certain thing is pieced together. Sometimes I feel like it’d be easier just to have the humans come back and help us with this stuff. Though to be fair, it is illegal to say that. Well, I’m not in a clan any more, so I can say what I want.

The door slides open, revealing my squads preparation room. I step inside. I figure that leaving the door open wouldn’t be an issue, since no one is coming in here so late at night. Right? Hopefully. I mean normally dogs do not walk around at night. Too tired ya know? I wonder if humans do things at night. I guess not. As I walk past my team’s packs, I stop to look at them. Perhaps I should take one, so that I can steal some food and take that with me. That would at least give me and Meza some time where we didn’t need to hunt ourselves. Yeah, that’ll work. I slip on my pack, removing the tracking and emergency devices. I felt dumb doing this, I’m not used to going rebellious against my own dogs. But they did rebel against me first, so you can consider it even now. I exit the room, and head for the kitchen. I told you that food always comes first in any plan. If you’re an animal then you understand. If you are human, then I’m not sure. I’m hoping you do.

To be honest, the kitchen was so chalk full of delicious stuff, that I had a hard time trying to decide on what to take and what to leave. This was the first time I could have breakfast and dinner at the same time. Like wow, that’s crazy. I’m not being sarcastic. For your average dog, this is uncharted territory. Didn’t humans have a game or something called Uncharted? I think Aile was playing that once. He got so mad I swear. His barking woke up the whole base. I don’t even know what he was getting angry at. How do you get mad at a TV screen? I mean besides the fact that we can’t play well without fingers. Oh great, that makes me think of Aile. Him getting nearly killed by the cats. Or maybe he… Ah I’m sure he’s fine. I take my mind off that with the wonderful act of stuffing my pack full of food. Steak, bacon, cheese, potato chips, water, tuna. I’m pretty sure most of this stuff wouldn’t be possible without the human tech. Do I talk about humans too much? I’m sorry, it’s just an interesting topic for any animal. Hm, do they think of us at all? I dunno. I do know from class that they don’t have fur, which sucks. You know what they should do? They should dress up in our fur, so they aren’t cold! Wouldn’t that help? Wonder what you’d call that… Well it doesn’t matter for now. With my pack nicely plump, I head out the kitchen and down the hall towards Max’s office.

I have no clue what’s taking me so long to do this. I’ve been sitting outside of Max’s door for at least five minutes. No really I’m actually sitting here, staring at the polished brown door. Max’s name on a plaque in gold nailed on. Maximillion, yeah a millions worth of bull manure. Trust me that stuff stinks like heck. What was I afraid of? I was scared of getting my fluffy behind beaten by my own leader. If he was even awake, which would be likely. Leaders have to be alert at all times. There’s a chance that he’d be resting, but would be woken very easily. I was pretty sure that I didn’t have enough skill to defeat him. However, there is one thing that I have that he doesn’t. Probably the only clan leader who doesn’t have it. I open the door slowly, and step in.

I wasn’t used to being in the office without a light source. It was the Cat Clan all over again. I walked right into a trash can, then I smacked into the desk itself. I shake myself out of the daze, and crawl around to the back. I begin to feel around. The desk has four drawers, and inside of one them would be the paper piece I need. Question is, which one? I have to find out. I inspect the first two, nothing. Just some battle plans, and schedules for the base. I move around the desk chair to the other side. As I do so, I hear a huffing coming from the seat. I freeze. Max was sleeping only a few inches above me. If he woke up and I’m right here… That won’t happen.

I pull open the bottom right drawer. A stack of blank papers and pencils. Since when did Max write anything? But wait, in the bottom of the stack, buried underneath all the others, is a brown sheet, and it looks old, barely sticking out of the stack. I carefully reach in and retrieve it. Bingo! An old, torn, part of a map. It showed all of the Ash, with a yellow line leading… somewhere. The part I had lead to the forest. I know for a fact that there is nothing in the forest relating to the Vaze. Unless the Monkeys have it. But it’s piece 1, so I wouldn’t expect much. I close the drawer, and begin to make my way toward the door. I feel elated, I actually did it! Max didn’t see me. I creep up to the door. I’m about to slip through when it close shut abruptly via mechanism.

I jolt backwards, a voice speaking behind me.

“ Ah, Blitz. It’s a shame to think you would stoop this low. Seems like I’ll have to kill you myself now.” I turn around, shaking, as Max hops off his chair, and stalks closer to me. I can only see his eyes in the dark. His golden eyes, glaring at me with selfish intent. He taps the ground three times in succession, and the lights blink on in the room, blinding me for a second.

“ M-Max. I’m doing this so I can get the Vaze! I know I can! Can’t you help me?” I say, my voice stuttering. Max stops a few feet in front of me.

“ Sorry Blitz, I cannot. You know that such a foolish goal is unachievable. If our best scouts are unable to locate it, what makes you think you can do any better? Give it up Blitz, give me the PAPER!” He was practically yelling at this point. I wouldn’t be surprised if guards were lining outside the door right now. I clutched the map in my mouth. I spat it out on the floor.

“ I’m not giving it to you. But I will put it aside so I can kick your buttocks for banning me!” I exclaimed. Max laughed.

“ I don’t understand why you won’t follow orders. I have things in place to keep us safe, and you reject that. If you won’t follow us, we won’t follow you.”

“ Fine then, big boy. Come at me.”

Max leaped, rolling forward. He literally barreled into me, crushing me against the door. He righted himself, slashing with his teeth across my stomach. Blood was splattered across the floor. I cry out in pain, crumpling down. This plus the damages from the wolf weren’t good for me. Max used his heavy muzzle to slam my head into the ground repeatedly. My nose felt like mush, but I don’t think it was broken, yet.

“ Blitz, I can give you one more chance to leave. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. So if you go now, and give me the paper I’ll let you live.” Max tried to reason with me. I wouldn’t take it.
“ No! I won’t stop on this mission!” I roll on my side to the left, dodging his next strike. I get up quickly. “ I know I can do this! I know it will help all of us! Even you!”

“ That’s a laugh. You’re not being funny Blitz.” Max runs at me again. I try to jump over him, but he’s too big. He slams me into the wall again, this time holding me down with his jaw around my neck. For a moment I think this is it. I won’t be meeting Meza back at the slope. I won’t be completing the mission. Max closes his jaw slowly, cutting into my skin.

Then I remembered I’m special. As hard as it was at the moment, I focus. Max’s desk rises up, and hurls itself into Max’s back hard, cracking in half. Max grunts, falling to the side, temporarily dazed. I decided that fleeing would be the smarter option. I hastily run to the door, picking up the map piece on my way. I pull open the door and run out. I made a mistake.

As soon as I exit the office, I run into three officers. They are staring at me angrily.

“ Stop there kid! You’re in serious trouble!” One said.

“ How about no sir.” I say, sliding under their feet. That’s the good thing about being small, is I can slide under some people. The officers turn around confused.

“ What did he just do?” One asked.

“ He went under you idiot!” The one on the left said.

“ Oh. Get him!” They all ran after me. We ended up waking the entire Clan.

“ Everyone. A traitor is in our base. Kill him at all costs!” Max announced on the comms. I was really beginning to hate those voice overs. All the dorm rooms opened up. Thankfully most dogs were confused, and tired. Some did try to stop me unfortunately. One lunged at me. I jumped over him. Another tried to slam into me directly. I skidded like I was gonna stop, allowing me to dodge to the right and get around the greyhound. The officers kept yelling behind me. More dogs came at me, my own brothers trying to stop me. I dodge, sliding, and hopping over them all.  I was getting tired. I ran into my squads room, and bolted out into the mountains.

I thought I was good. Looking behind me I realized I wasn’t. Around thirty dogs were still chasing after me, blowing through the grass. I couldn’t afford it, but I summon a wall in front of me. Blocking them off for a few seconds, letting me get ahead. Someone also had earth powers, because that pillar was broken down into pieces, and the chase continued. The slope wasn’t an option at this point. I ran toward the clump of trees. I used the ground to boost myself up onto a branch, one with thick leaves. I crouched down. The group below me ran ahead. They had lost me. I wasn’t sure how long I would have to stay there, for them to give up and go back. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait, since I fell asleep almost immediately.

I woke up to warm, soft morning light. The sun burned up above me. The dogs were gone. I sat up, and winced. I hurt all over. I remembered my fight with Max. I’m surprised I managed to escape. I ate a quick breakfast, and climbed down the tree. I slipped and fell. I sat for a few minutes, dealing with the pain in my legs.

“ Agh, great what now?” I say to myself. “ Oh wait… Her.” I get up wearily and head to the slope. I swear if any Clans had seen me, I was gonna be as good as dead. I made it to the slope, where a purple cat was waiting for me. I reached her.

“ Heya Meza.” I flopped down onto the dirt next to her.

“ Oh jesus what happened Blitz?!” She asks, looking over me frantically.

“ Well. I was caught in my attempt to get my paper.”

“ Did you get it?”
“ Yeah, in my pack. I have some food also.” Meza takes off my pack, looking through it.

“ Well done! I have my piece also, and some food and medicine.” She looks me over. “ Gosh you look terrible. I feel like I should help you heal.”
“ If you want to, then I could use it.”
“ I think you mean more than ‘could.’”

“ Do I? Sorry I’m too tired to think properly.”
“ I’m sure you are stupid.” Meza laughs, and puts medicine on me. This was a weird process. I had like, lean on my back, as she licked the cream on my legs and stomach. I wonder if it tasted bad. Problem was, I was ticklish. Which made it difficult to stay still. Meza was having a time trying to get the stuff on me.

“ Blitz stay still. I get that it’s ticklish but this is important. Blitz! Stop!” She would said loudly. I was doing my best!

Fifteen minutes later it’s over with. I lay there, letting the medicine do its thing.

“ So Meza, why aren’t you damaged?” I asked.

“ I didn’t fight anyone. I knew how to sneak in and get out while not being seen.”
“ Lucky. Can you teach me how?”

“ I could, if the situation calls for it. But you’ll have to listen.”
“I can do that.”
“ I dunno about that.”
“ Hey! Why not?”
“ We’ll see.” She stared into the horizon, smirking. So did I. It was a great feeling, being there, alone with her. I’m not even sure why exactly. But I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Not even back in my own Clan. This was, perfect. Weird. The two of us ended up sleeping there again. When we woke up, Meza was oddly close to me, huh. We got on our packs. I yawned.

“ Where to then?” I asked.

“ We have two pieces of the map, so three more. We can do the Birds, since they are just past the mountains in the valley.”
“ Alright. You like birds?”
“ No.”
“ Me neither. Let’s go.”

“ Should we look at the pieces we have?” I asked.

“ I don’t think it’s the right time. We don’t wanna be seen. And it won’t matter until we have all the parts anyway.” Meza told me. With that, we walked off toward the open valley, and the Bird Clan Base.

Getting there was easy. We didn’t encounter any other clan members on the way there, which was fine by me. I needed some time to relax and regenerate my powers anyway. I could still fight normally though, of course. Meza and I could’ve killed some passing by rodents, there was a family of mice that looked plump and tasty, but we didn’t need to. Since we each had our own stock of stolen food, murdering others wasn’t necessary, yet. My body felt weird for a little while. I keep thinking my legs were sticky or something, but it was just the medicine.
“ Hey, Meza?” I asked as we crossed in between tall mountains.

“ Hm?” She walked at an equal pace with me.

“ Where do Cats even get this medicine from? Do they make it?”
“ As far as I know, we only have four members who attempt to make it. Most of the time it’s reproduced from human leftover tech. Like the kind of system used to resupply the Milk Maiden.”

“ Oh wow, ok. Does any of you know how or why the humans left this stuff?”
“ Besides the fact of they needed to leave this continent quickly or else they’d die. Causing to them to have to leave their stuff.”
“ How do you know?”
“ It’s mostly just a theory, but from what the scouts have found in the city remnants, it’s likely.”

“ It seems like you guys do a lot of inspecting, unlike my clan.”
“ Well, Cats are more intelligent than Dogs.”
“ Oh really? Can we test that theory?”
“ Sure. Tell me about the Photoelectric Effect.”
“ Alright I got this.” I stared the grass, trying my hardest to figure out what the heck a Photoelectric Effect was. It sounded like a disease or something. I simply sigh.

“ Ok… I have no clue. Can I get an easier question?” Meza laughs.

“ That proves my point. But it really doesn’t matter right now.”
“ I guess not, except for my ruined ego.”
“ Good, you never needed to have one in the first place.”

“ Can you stop roasting me? I’m not out to be hunted.”

“ You are, I just don’t feel like killing you.”
“ Thanks I appreciate that you’ve decided against it. It means a lot it truly does.” She laughs again, and my chest flutters.

“ Ok then, Blitz.” She stops. I step forward a few feet before realizing I need to stop also. “ We are here.” I notice that we’ve left the mountainous part of the valley, and reached the open part.

The open valley consists of literally nothing except for grass, ground, and the biggest singular tree I’ve ever seen. Really, this thing dominates every other mountain in the valley. It goes up so high it’s top is a shadow. The trunk itself is very thick, which allows for the inside to be hollowed out and moved into like a house. Or a base. I could already see them. Small specks soaring around the tree. Hundreds of them, all scouting out for food. Landing on branches, and giving to their families in dozens of wood made nests. There were so many branches I imagine you could make a playground out of it.

“ Bird Clan base.” Meza said seriously, eyeing the flying animals. “ We have to reach the top.”
“ Wait why?” I ask quickly. That sounded like the exact kinda thing I didn’t want to do.

“ A report, from a Cat scout squad from… a few weeks back. They dared coming here, two died, two survived. They explained to Lexi that the leader of these birds resides in the top of the tree, where all the treasure is kept. I dunno how they got in and out alive. Must’ve been just barely, considering they were in terrible shape on arrival.” She explained to me. I look at the tree, imagining a group of Cats, trying frantically to get up the trunk while being assaulted by beaks and claws. I stepped back a bit, my tail dipping down.

“ You know maybe this was a bad idea. We could find another way to get back into our bases, right? I mean-”
“ Blitz, don’t be a wuss.” She looked directly into my eyes. “ We’ve already set this mission into action. We can’t go back, not now. We either do this, or live out in the wild by ourselves forever.” You know I wouldn’t mind that so much. I think to myself. I shake my head.

“ Agh, fine. We can do this. But how can we do it, and not get mutilated immediately?” Mezasokuri stares at the huge tree again.

“ I’m… not sure. We know for a fact that climbing the outside is suicide, so perhaps we can find a way inside of the tree.”

“ That’s fine with me let’s just go.” I say eagerly.

Meza stalks around the tree, looking for a way in. I stick close behind her, my tail in between my legs. I wasn’t scared, just concerned, for our safety. Eventually she stops, and I bump right into her.

“ Blitz! Stay focused!” She exclaims to me, annoyed.

“ S-sorry! What’s up?”

“ There.” Meza points with her nose, and I follow. Dug into the side of the trunk, is a larger than average bird hole, with a small pole for them to land on and hop in.

“ So, we go in there? Won’t we get spotted?” I ask.

“ Hm. Well, we probably will if we just dive bomb right in. Which we won’t. Instead, what about a distraction?”
“ Whadda mean?”
“ Get something for the birds out here to focus on, and then we sneak in?”
“ OH I get it. I know what we can use.”
“ What?”
“ You’ll see. Just, are you ready to run when I say so?”

“ I dunno if I’m ready to trust you.”
“ Sure you are, I hope. Just please, trust me on this.” Meza was silent for a moment.

“ Okay, go ahead.”

“ Yes!... I mean, yes I will do my thing now!” I say stupidly.

I concentrate on summoning Earth Crusher. The ground rumbles as three pillars erupt from the ground next to the tree base. Luckily enough, there was a pack of worms there. They slithered around the pillars, confused. For a second, nothing happened. I stuck out my tongue as I thought it wouldn’t work. Birds to notice the pillars, and by the tens flew down toward it, inspecting it.
“ Ok go now!” I say.

“ Is that gonna be long enough?” Meza asks.

“ Maybe but I’m going in!” I run ahead, with Meza behind me. We dash through the green, somehow not being spotted. I guess those wormy pillars were just too much for a bird to handle. I reach the pole. Meza looks at me, like what now genius. I’m afraid I’m gonna tire myself out again, but I summon a small bump in the ground, and hop up onto the pole. I almost lose my footing and slide right off, but Meza bites my fur, catching me.

“ Ow! Thanks.” I complain, steading myself. She gestures to the hole with her muzzle. The birds begin to dissipate from the pillars. I dive in through the bird and into the base.

I drop down behind a furnace. Meza lands on top of me.

“ Ow! Really?! Could you watch where you fall?” I ask, annoyed. She crawls off of me and shakes herself off, I do the same.

“ I didn’t know where we would be landing! Sorry.” Meza replies softly.

“ Eh, it’s fine. What the heck is this?” I inspect the furnace, sniffing it with my nose. I recoil at the intense smell of burnt out meat, charcoal, and grease. “ And why does it smell so bad?!”
“ Blitz shut it!” Meza peeks around the corner of the silver machine, then faces me. “ This is the Bird’s base alright. Take a look, quickly and silently.” I do so, extending my head around the side. The inside of the tree was completely hollow for miles upward. There were no extra floors or anything like my clan. Just open space going straight up to the top, where a trap door lead into the leader’s floor, I assumed. What was in here however, were hundreds of bird poles. All sticking out of the trunk all along the wall, going up. I swear it was more of a monkey place than a bird place. I guess they’re for the birds to land on and do, whatever birds do. Down at ground level, around twenty different cooking machines were scattered around. More furnaces, ovens, microwaves, refrigerators. I bring my head back behind the furnace.

“ This is weird, why so many cooking stations?” I ask. I expected Meza to answer. But last I checked, she didn’t have the squeaky voice of an aerial creature.

“ Why it’s because we got so much food to eat for everyone, we couldn’t possibly do with just one! And no one here is willin’ to eat raw when we don’t have to!” I jumped back, hitting my head against the trunk. Meza and I look up, guarded, at the three birds standing on top of the furnace. The two on the outside were black and grey, with the one in the middle being black, with a red belly. “ I thought I heard something. It’s funny what gets in here when hunting session is active.”

“ Hunting session?” Meza asks. “ You mean why the rest of you are outside right now?”
“ Precisely young feline!” The red bird twitches his head, hoping forward. “ Giving us the opportunity to get a big kill! We’ll be rewarded so much for this one boys!”

“ Wait,” I interrupted. “ What kind of rewards does a bird even get anyways? Seeds? Worms?” This pissed them off. They eyed me angrily.

“ Smart aleck, huh? Let’s see how smart you really are, when you’re about to die!” The red bird leaped down from the furnace, diving at me, claws ready to scratch my life out.

I roll to the side, causing ( I’ll just call him Red.) to smack beak first into the trunk. He hit the ground, and shook the dizziness off of him.

“ Alright. Seems you have some moves. Still won’t help you!” He fluttered his wings and shot at me again. Meza was dealing with the other two birds. They flew around her, pecking at her viciously. She grabbed one with her psychokinesis, slamming it into the other. They both went tumbling. While they were still on the ground, she bit one grey bird, and then caught the other in her mouth, biting down. They both hit the ground, covered in red. I tried to catch Red in my mouth, but he saw it coming. He whirled around me, scraping my back. I let out a quick moan, turning around.  Red did a large U-turn around the room, diving at me. I readied, but I didn’t have to. Meza jumped into Red, grabbing him. She hit the floor, and bit his neck, ending his life. She spat out bird blood.

“ Oh dang, thanks.” I say, walking closer to her.

“ Just doing what I have to. Birds are so aggravating.” She looks around, then stares upwards. “ We have to go up.”
“ Excuse me, but we don’t have wings.”
“ I know genius, but we don’t need any. Watch.” Meza runs over to the lowest bird pole, jumping up and onto it. She leaps to the next one, and the next. “ Use these as platforms. Have you played that human game, uh, Mega Man?”
“ Nope. And I can’t jump like you can!” I complain.

“ You have to, otherwise you’ll be down there when the other birds come back.” I decide that seeing them all wouldn’t be too exciting. I begin to make my way up the poles.

At first it wasn’t too bad. I could keep up with Meza, and not fall and split my head open. Then two things happened. One is, the poles got farther and farther apart the closer we got to the top. Also, I looked down. I’m not sure what the rules are for when you are journeying vertically, but I assume now that one of them is to never look straight down. Because holy, it sent a chill through me. I froze, and wouldn’t move. Meza, about two poles ahead, turned around.

“ Hey! Blitz, what are you doing?” She called.

“ I-I looked down.” I mutter.

“ Agh, well just don’t think about it. Focus on the next pole in front of you. You’ve been great so far, just keep going!” Something about the fact that she said I was doing great is what put me out of the shock. I leaped up and continued onwards.

Thank goodness we made it to the top. I was beginning to get tired. I almost slipped off once. My heart had never raced so fast. Meza reached the top first. There was a floor with a trap door built in. A larger one at that. She unbuckled the lock and climbed in. I followed suit as fast I could. I stand for a bit, thankful to be on some kind of solid ground again. After praising to myself for a few seconds, I take in the room we are in. The walls were glass, showing the outside world. Shelves of books lined the perimeter, with a small vault in the middle, sitting next to a large nest, made out of leather. It seemed harmless. Except one thing. The biggest bird I had ever seen was looking directly at us. He was brown and yellow. I stopped moving as soon as I realized we were being watched. Meza had seen it sooner, she eyed me. I wanted to say something, but I feared we’d be attacked sooner if I did.

So at this point, things are getting awkward. He is staring at us, unblinking. And we look at him, unable to focus on anything else. This goes on for like four minutes. I had so many itches come up in that time, it was ridiculous. Finally I couldn’t handle it anymore.

“ So uh, can we have your map piece?” I ask, sitting down politely. Meza glances at me like, Ok so you are trying to get us killed. Even though that wasn’t the point of course. The head bird gets up, his long pointy feet shining.

“ Well now, that’s an interesting way to enter. You two aren’t specialized hunters, are you?” He asks. His voice is very, deep, and serious. Like a, what you’d say, a lawyer.

“ No. But we don’t need to be. We just wanna get that nice thingie called a Vaze. Could you help with that?” I say. The bird walks over to the vault.

“ Well, this map you want is in here. Only thing you need is the code. Four digits. You kids know numbers?”
“ I do.” Meza was still silent next to me.

“ That’s good. Next thing you need is for me to tell you what numbers specifically. That’s where the process ends for anyone trying to get in. Even my own kind.”
“ I think we can get it out of you. Right Meza?” I say, a little nervously. For a moment she still says nothing. Then she sighs.

“ Why not, birds aren’t that hard anyway.” She gets into battle position. I do the same. The bird leader laughs.

“ Right, ok. It’s so cute, having all these other clans come to try and steal from us. They never win.” He flexes his wings. “ Welp, time to dispose of two more, I suppose.”

For such an old looking person, he can move fast man. He rockets right toward me. Grabbing me, and and tossing me into the book shelf. Why are books so hard? They penetrated my back, as I slid to the ground. Some fell off of the shelf. I get up warily.

“ Why destroy your own room?” I ask weakly.
“ It’s fine. We need stuff to do anyways.” The bird says. Meza jumps up, biting his tail. He squawks so loud it bursts my ears. He throws Meza off of him. She rolls along the ground, managing to right herself. A little bird pops her head in through the trapdoor.

“ Briorban? The food is ready to be cooked.”
“ Not now! Hold on!” The little one ducks back down as Briorban flies at Meza. She tries to dodge to the right, but is hit by his wing. She falls back against the floor, the old bird looming over her. “ Easy pickings!” He says playfully, raising his claw.
“ Hey! The only person she’s getting picked by is me!” I scream, running at him. Apparently he’d forgotten about me. I jump on him, sinking my teeth into his back. Briorban squawks again, failing his feathers to get me off. I stay attached, keeping my teeth in. I feel blood dripping down. Meza slams her body into him, causing him to lose aerial balance and hit the ground. She grabs him with her powers, holding him down. I break off a piece of the glass wall, cracking the glass as I do so. It’s nice and pointy. I hold it next to Briorban’s neck.

“ Alright so. Tell us what the code is.” I say, threatening as I am.

“ I know you won’t do it!” The bird chides us.

“ You sure?” I hold the glass shard closer to him. I inch it ever closer, until it’s barely away from his skin.

“ Ok fine! It’s 5 7 8 2!” He screams.

“ Blitz, go put that in!” Meza orders me. I don’t like taking directions from cats, but by this point it doesn’t matter.

I jab my nose at the combination lock. The vault door pops open, and I push it all the way outward. Inside is the map piece, along with  some beer bottles, and toe nail cleaners. I’m not gonna ask. I grab the map piece with my mouth, and stuff it in my pack, closing the door shut.

“ Got it.” I say happily.

“ Good, now let’s get out of here.” Meza says.
“ Ok.” I walk over to the trapdoor. Just as I go to open it, it bursts open on it’s own. Dozens of birds fill the room.

“ We thought you might need help Leader.” The same orange bird from before exclaims.

“ Yes! Kill them!” Briorban adds helpfully.

“ Meza! Jump out the window!” I said loudly.

“ What? Why?” She asks in shock.

“ Please just do it! I can’t say with them listening, but we should be fine!”
“ Emphasis on should!” She says, running for the glass. Briorban himself simply groans on the floor. It must suck to be old. Meza shatters the glass as she leaps out and falls down, with me following. The flock of birds chasing after us.

We fall fast, the winding rippling through our fur. It was kinda exhilarating honestly. Just the rush it gave me was something I wasn’t used to. Then again I don’t go jumping off really tall trees everyday. But I had to keep us from going splat on the grassy ground. I summon a large pillar from the ground surface, willing it to rise up as fast as possible. I run a hundred different scenarios in my head, where we ended up dying. Because I was being stupid. How would this even work? I figure not questioning it is best, since we did survive. The pillar of earth rushes up to meet us. Both of us land on it. I do an involuntary front roll, ending up on my back. Meza staggers next to me, getting up. I really just felt like laying there, not moving. Maybe rejoice in the fact that we had three out of the five pieces to finding the Vaze. Too bad, the Birds weren’t about to give that to me. Sad.

I stand up on my legs, just as the first wave attacks. Smart, not sending in all of them at once. Five of them, colored in black and white. Two dove at Meza, and the other three at me. Of course I got the bigger half. I do a side hop, grabbing the first one in my mouth, shaking it violently. I toss it off the edge of the pillar, which was now falling down at increasing speed. We just had to live long enough to get away on the ground. The second bird pecked me, clawing my face. I growl, trying to grab it. It flies out of my reach, just as the third lands on my back, clawing into me. I drop down on my front two feet, throwing the bird off of me. Seems it wasn’t expecting that, since it went tumbling. I summon a piece of the pillar, chucking it at the bird. It gets crushed underneath. The second bird dives at me again. I picked up the same rock, sending it flying. Unfortunately, it dodges it, continuing its path. I jump right at it, biting its beak. Ew, that tastes really weird, like wood, or something, I dunno. Just don’t try to eat bird beaks please. Bird heads are so small, that I was able to crunch down and squish the whole skull. I spit it back onto the ground. I turn to help Meza. She didn’t need it. She’d killed about six more birds in the time I’d taken. Now she was freezing a bird in mid-air, dragging it closer to her so she could scratch its neck. It hit the pillar. The other birds seemed nervous now. Good.

“ Blitz! What exactly are we doing?” My feline friend asks.

“ Uh, riding this thing down to the ground, then booking it out of here.” I say.

“ Are you sure we can lose them?”
“ I hope!”
“ Birds are hard to lose!”
“ Can we be a bit more optimistic please!”
“ Sure, show me that I can be!”

I was going to. The pillar rejoined with the rest of the Ash. Dirt billowed up all around us, the ground rumbling. The birds in the air would be confused by this, giving us time to leave.

“ Meza!” I call out. “ We need to go now.”
“ Where?” She calls out to me. I can’t even see her in the thick dirt. I take a chance, running forward, in whatever direction I’m facing.
“ Come on this way!” I yell out, hoping she can follow the sound of my voice. I dash out of the dirt cloud, running away from the Bird base. I see a hill in front of me. I risk glancing behind me. Meza was on my trail, good. The hundreds of Birds were also on my trail, not good.

“ I think I know where we can go.” I say, trying to keep my breathing steady. Meza doesn’t say anything, she just nods. Either she was agreeing with me, or agreeing with herself that I’m going to get us killed. I wouldn’t be afraid to agree myself. But I wasn’t about to agree with dying. Not now.

I run up to the bottom of the hill, summoning my power once again. I knew for a fact that after this, I would pass out. Hopefully I can get us to safety before that happens. The Birds swarm above us, regaining their bravery. Just as I reached the hill side, I stop abruptly, focusing. I open a small cave in the hill. Nothing too large, just enough to fit two small animals. I forgot that Meza was still running behind me. She slams into me, and we both roll over each other into the cave. In my daze, I close the opening, just as another flock of birds tries diving for us. The rock face closes, and we are sealed in.

Meza and I both lay there, on the cold stone, gasping and panting. New cuts fresh on our bodies.

“ Well, we did it!” I say, trying to be enthusiastic.

“ I really should kill you.” Meza says casually.

“ Why?”
“ You really need to tell me what you are doing before you do it.”
“ Sorry! I just didn’t want the birds to over hear us!”

“ Okay, but still. A little more warning before you just stop in front of me as I’m running behind you?”
“ You’re right. Too busy on trying to save our lives, my bad.” Meza lets a small chuckle, then lays down against the rock wall.

“ How did you even do this?” She asks.
“ I seriously don’t know. I just thought about it, willed it to happen. And it happened.”
“ That’s quite an amazing power you have Blitz.” Meza looks up at me, her eyes sparkly. Again, my heart flutters, what is with that? All I know, is that I enjoyed it more than I had enjoyed anything in my whole life. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t remember what it was, since I pass out.

Do  you really expect me to be able to stay awake, after doing what I had just done? I hope you wouldn’t, because I can’t. No animal can use that much power and stay conscious. Can humans do that? Maybe, who knows. One thing I do know, is that waking up was the best feeling. Really, it was. See, normally I wake up, and I feel pretty good, just I feel, normal. You know? Like today will be a good day, but not anything special. That kind of thing. That’s how it normally is for me anyway. What I’m saying is, that wasn’t like that this time. First off, I felt much better energy wise. I had to of been sleeping a long while, since I felt so refreshed! I knew I could use Earth Crusher so much more, once I had to. I didn’t want to unless it was necessary. Second, as soon as I open my eyes, I smell food. A pile of meat, and cheese is sitting in front of me. Meza is in front of me, eating her meal of cheese, and salad. I have new medicine on my body. I can’t exactly describe to you why this made me so happy. Perhaps it had something to do with that we were alone, in a confined space with no one except us two. That we each had something nice to eat, and someone nice to eat with. Maybe you don’t care about all this, but I certainly do. I sit up, and chow down on my food.

“ Meza, did you set up this?” I ask, once I’m done eating. She nods.

“ Yeah. I figured that you must be tired after all that. So I let you sleep. Mean time I put some stuff out for you when you woke up. And put on more of the cream. I swear we are using up so much.”
“ How long was I sleeping?”
“ Well, my perception of time isn’t exactly up to human levels. But I’d say around ten hours.”

“ Excuse me did you say ten hours?!”

“ Yeah.”
“ What were you doing?”
“ Sleeping. I’m tired also you know.”
“ Oh right. That makes sense. Well, thanks. Are females always into caring so much?”
“ Are you implying I was caring for you?” I felt my face get a little red.

“ Well, I mean… uh, maybe? I’m just asking. Since in human culture they show that a lot.”

“ Oh Blitz.” Meza laughs. “ WE aren’t always like the humans. Perhaps sometimes, but not always. I just did this since we needed it. I understand what necessity is.” She says this to me, but I swear she blushes also.
“ Right yeah, that’s logical.” I reply. “ So then, you aren’t caring for me, gotchu.” She laughs again.

“ You can say I was, if you want.” She lays back down on the ground. I do the same, my chest beating rapidly. Meza ends up falling asleep again. I look her over, seeing the cuts on her body. I decide that since she did all this for me, I should help her also. I spend some minutes licking medicine on her. Again, don’t try this yourself. That cream was disgusting. I don’t know how she deals with it. But I managed to get it on her without vomiting. Yay. I move back to my spot and plop down.

A few minutes later, Meza bumps me with her nose.

“ Get up. We should go after the next piece.” I stand up.

“ Are we not looking at what we have first?”
“ Does it matter yet?”
“ Well no, but still. Please?”
“ Fine.” I spill out the map pieces, moving them into place. It shows a trail going through the forest, then through the arctic tundra, across a desert, and then, it’s cut off.

“ Agh, we are so close! I can feel it!” I exclaim.

“ Can you?” Meza chides.

“ I guess so. But yeah, let’s go.” Realizing that the ending is only two map pieces away, I get filled with determination to keep going. I use my new well slept energy to open a small hole in the hill side. Meza slips out, and I follow, closing the gap behind me. We each throw on our packs, ( not easy without fingers.) and head for the Great Forest.

Reaching the Forest was easy enough. The birds had thankfully decided to leave us alone. I didn’t even see them anywhere. We were close enough for them to find us, but maybe they were giving us a break. Either way, we didn’t waste any time running into the trees. Honestly, it was nice being under all the dense leaves and branches, since it was hot out! I dunno about humans, but for us animals, we have a lot of fur on, meaning we get warm very quickly. I didn’t wanna waste water either, since we weren’t about to die. As we move along the ground, Meza scrunches up her nose.

“ What’s up?” I ask.

“ Nothing. I just don’t like the smell of this place. It has a very moist, and dirty smell. Ugh.” I let out a laugh.

“ It can’t be that bad.” I take a big whiff. “ ACK, oh gosh!” I shake my head trying to get the scent out of me.

“ Told you.” Meza says, smirking.

“ Well sorry for not breathing!”
“ This would be a lot easier if we couldn’t breathe.”

“ Perhaps so.” We continue on.

If the smell wasn’t bad enough, it started to rain. Yup, not even exaggerating. The two of were just walking along, then I feel a drop on my head. OK, this is not what I think it is. It’s fine! I told myself initially. Then another droplet, and another. Right splat on top of my blue furry head.
“ Meza, are you feeling this?” I ask, seeing if I’m just hallucinating.

“ The rain? Yeah I do. We should take cover somewhere.” I look around, the tree branches above us won’t help with rainfall.

“ Where though?”
“ I’m… not sure.”

“ Maybe it’s light rain. You never know.”

“ Possibly.” Then, it pours, hard. We both stand there, getting absolutely drenched.

“ Well, guess it won’t be light.” Meza chides.

“ Thanks for the observation.” I say.

“ Hey, do you see that? In the distance.”

“ The trees?”
“ No Blitz, the crafted wood! The light tan wood!” I focus, trying to see. There’s some human made structures ahead, it kinda seems like a playground.

“ Oh, yeah. Is that the..?”
“ Monkey Base? Yup.”
“ From what I see it’s a playground.”
“ It is. I think.”
“ Why.”
“ I’m not answering questions, I’d rather not stand here at the mercy of the rain.” She moves forward, heading to the base.
“ Oh right!” I hastily spring to join her.

As we arrive, I become very confused.

“ You aren’t seriously telling me that this is the base?” I ask. Because honestly, it did not look like a base. It was a literal playground! Poles to swing from, walls to climb, ramps to slide down, and bouncy nets. Two small shacks lay in the middle. One labelled as ‘FOOD,’ and the ‘SECRET.’ I’m guessing we need to go in there, probably. Why else would they call it secret? Map piece for sure. Meza begins to advance.

“ Let’s get to the middle, and out of this rain.” She says. I make to follow her, then something walks in front of us. We both stop and look up at a large monkey. It’s brown, with white stripes slinking throughout its body. It inspects us, seeming confused.

“ Uh, hi. Can we move in?” I ask nicely. This apparently pisses off the monkey. It screeches loudly, and charges us. Meza rolls to the left, dodging him. I try to hop over him, but I slip on my front paws, face planting into the ground. The monkey grabs me, and flails me around wildly. My mind gets jumbled in the process. The monkey raises me up, as if to slam me back into the ground. Before he can, he is frozen by Meza’s power. I take this opportunity to bite his hand, causing him to drop me. While he’s still frozen, I slash his belly with my teeth. He moans in pain. I hop up, successfully this time, and bite his face. Meza drops him, and he doesn’t get up. I land on the ground.

“ Monkeys are not clean.” I say, shaking myself.

“ Are you okay?” Meza asks, looking me over.

“ Yeah I’m fine. Let’s just get this over with.” I walk forward into the playground, Meza following.

I have something I need you to promise me. Don’t ever hang out with Monkeys, please. They have literally no life goals, or any cruds to give about anything. The first thing I noticed as we entered the ‘base,’ was the amount of lazing there was. Practically the whole base was just lying about, not giving any cares. Monkeys slept on the ground, on ramps, on nets, they hung from poles. They were crowded around the two rooms.

“ Meza what time is it?” I ask.

“ Uh. I already told you, I dunno exactly. But…” She looks up into the sky, it’s getting near dark, the moon is starting to be visible. “ Maybe they are just sleeping.”

“ My clan doesn’t sleep this early.”

“ Neither does mine. But these guys could be different.” A monkey to our left rolls over. He looks at us, then rolls back to the other side.

“ Are you sure they aren’t just lazy? Some kind of megalolazing fest?”
“ Do you even know what that means?”

“ Kind of.”
“ Whatever, let’s just keep moving.”

We make our way through the playground, careful not to touch anyone. Jeez it smelled so bad! Honestly, my nose would hate me by the time we left this place. We were able to make it to the rooms no problem, which seemed off to me.

“ Should we bust into the secrets room?” Meza wonders.

“ You can, I’m gonna get some food.” I decide.

“ Are you sure?”
“ Yeah.”
“ Alright. Just meet me back here ok?”
“ Of course.” Was she worried about me? My heart again, dude. I strode up to the food building’s door. It was open. This was too easy. Inside are shelves of food and some refrigerators. I take all I can, and put it in my pack. I may have taken too long, since I was having too much fun, eating and not being pelted by rain. Once I finally choose to disembark, I exit back out of the wooden room. I was assuming that we would get out no problem, right? Well, you know what’s next by now. All the monkeys were awake, looking at me. They weren’t attacking, but they were waiting for something.

“ Uh, Meza?” I call wearily. She doesn’t answer. I look to my left, and she’s there, her pack a little fuller, staring at someone in front of her. An orange and red, fairly tall and obese monkey. Limbs too long, much longer than the others. He scratches his chin.

“ Huh, more intruders. We haven’t had intruders in a while. How was the food lil’ pup?” He faces me.

“ Pup? That’s wrong buddy. But the food was great! Why don’t you spend more time eating it, rather then lazing around like losers?” I ask. The crowd around us gasps. The leader tilts his head.

“ Well, that’s not nice. I am Cervu, and I will crush you for saying that.” I didn’t know where he’d come from. Maybe he was too lazy to stop us until now. But it didn’t matter. We had to beat him and get out.

I readied myself, waiting for him to attack. Cervu’s left arm extended, stretching at impossible speed and length. He slapped me so hard I spin around, and get a little dizzy. He picks me up, and tosses me. I slam into a ramp, sliding into the crowd of apes. They toss me into a bouncy net, where I’m thrown into the air again. I fall, hitting a pole on the way down. Meza catches me and places me next to her.

“ That was weird.” I say, trying to deal with my stomach screaming in pain.

“ He’s difficult to deal with, with those stretchy limbs. But he doesn’t seem too smart.”
“ Then what do we do?”

“ I know. Run around him!”
“ WHAT?” Cervu yells. He sounded more confused than anything. Meza begins to do laps around him. Cervu tries to find her, but she was too small. He extends his limbs, but he couldn’t find her. I realized the plan. I begin to loop around him in the opposite direction of Meza. This confused the monkey leader even more. His arms reaching out to grab us. Eventually he’d gone around so many times, he wrapped himself up in a fuzzy armed bundle. He falls over, cussing. Meza and I look at him, panting. Cervu struggled to get free, but he couldn’t budge. The other monkeys watched us in awe. They’d never seen this happen before.

“ That is why you always look before you touch.” I say, snickering.

“ Shut up.” Meza taps me with her head. “ Let’s leave before they get violent.”

“ Good idea.” We begin to walk out of the base.

As we do, I accidentally step on a small ape’s hand. She screams, causing all the others to scream, and get up, and chase us.

“ Blitz really?!” Meza exclaims, starting to run.

“ Sorry!” I dash away after her.

“ Why do we need to run away from every base!”
“ I’m sorry!”
“ Stop being a doofus and come on!” I stop dead in my tracks.

“ No. We are gonna prevent them from following us.” Meza skids to a halt, facing me.

“ How?” The monkeys race after us, they aren’t very fast.

“ I’m gonna put up a wall, then you hold it up for as long as you can, we’ll head to the next area then.” Meza nods.

“ Worth a shot.” I turn around. The crazy apes close in. I summon a wall of stone. It rises up in front of me. The monkeys collide into it, bashing into each other. I blocked the exit to the base, so they can’t get out. Meza summons her power, giving the wall a blue glow. The monkeys wail on it but they can’t climb or break it.

“ Let’s go now!” I exclaim.

“ Where?” Meza asks, holding up the wall.

“ My rivals,” I tell her. “ The Wolves.”

Meza was able to block out the monkeys long enough for us to exit the general area of the Base. We ended up resting underneath an arch of boulders. We would stay there until the rain let up. I sat there, eating my new found food, and sharing it with Meza.

“ So, why are the Wolves your rivals?” She asks me, eating some beans.

“ Well, we are dogs, and they’re wolves. As far as I’ve been told, we just have a natural rivalry. We’re pretty similar, except that they are more bred to be wild than we are.”

“ Really?”
“ Yeah. I mean, personally I haven’t seen that many. Usually it’s some other hunting group that finds them. Stupids normally go too close to the arctic tundra, and they get spotted.”

“ When the two of you fight, do you normally win?”
“ Uh… Honestly, no. Most of the time they beat us. Like I’ve mentioned, they’re similar to us, but they are faster in combat. More agile, able to read what you’re going to do before you do it. I’ve heard that wolves have been hunting for much longer than us, or cats. Even back when the humans were around this continent!”

“ Yeah, I remember hearing about that, at some point in my clan. You have evidence?”
“ Well, no. Other then they must be older, how else would they have more practice and fighting knowledge than us?”
“ True, maybe they just study a lot?”
“ Do you actually think that any of us study?”
“ You’re right. Cats study more than you do.”
“ Why this again! I’ve already said that I don’t care!” Meza laughs.

“ Alright alright, I’ll stop. Maybe.”
“ Please do.”
“ I said maybe.”
“ Ok fine, if that’s all I can get then I’ll have to deal with it.” Meza finishes her food, setting it aside on the ground. By this point the rain has pretty much let up. Just the wet, mucky earth.

“ We should head out now. We don’t wanna wait and get caught in the rain again, especially when we are in the snow.” She tells me, getting up. I stand up also, stretching.

“ Yeah, makes sense. Are you okay with snow?”
“ How do you mean?”
“ Like, does cold weather affect you a lot?”
“ I’m not too sure. I haven’t been in the snow at all.”
“ Never?”
“ Nope. Not as far as I can remember.”

“ Huh, me neither. Shall we see together?”
“ I think we pretty much have to at this point.” Mezasokuri begins to walk out from under the boulders. “ Come on.” She heads down the hill in front of us, I follow. The dirt under us becomes cold. Then some sparse white flakes begin to appear. Then, the entire land in front of us is covered in white. We’ve reached the Arctic Tundra.

Now, that may sound daunting, but it really wasn’t. For one thing, the Wolf Base had to have been the easiest to find. It wasn’t built into the surrounding area like the others were, no. Instead, close to the Forest’s edge, was a huge mansion. About, two stories, I think. But they seemed like very big stories. The outside was bigger than the inside, or so I’d heard. We looked at it, mouths open. It had dozens of windows, a set of double doors, and purple torches blazing on the front, dissipating some of the nearby snow. Most interestingly about it however, was the material it was made out of. Solid ice. I’m not even kidding. The building was light blue and glossy. I have no clue how humans manage to make this kind of stuff, I really don’t. So, I did what any dog would do. I ran up to the front wall, and gave it a big old lick.

My tongue got stuck as soon as it made contact. I tried to pull it away, but it wouldn’t budge. It was like the ice was coated in glue or something. It actually hurt pretty bad. Don’t try this yourself please, it hurts! Meza casually comes up next to me, grinning.

“ So, this is your plan to get the next map piece?” She asks. I make a noise, trying to ask for help. Meza inspects the situation. “ Use your power.” I try to do so. I crack off a piece of the wall. The chunk hits the ground, my head following. That didn’t help. I was now bending down on my front paws, still stuck to the dang thing. Meza just stands there, watching. I was kinda annoyed she wasn’t helping, but then again, I didn’t know what she could do to help anyways. We were like that for around two minutes. Then, a voice calls from the front doors.

“ Well, this is interesting. Are you stuck little doggie?” A wolf trods over to us. She’s black and purple. “ I can help you.” In one big bite, she cracks the chunk clean into a bunch of mini pieces. I eat the ones still remaining on my tongue. It tastes, dirty.

“ What do you want?” Meza asks. The wolf addresses her.

“ Hold up, I should be asking you that same question. Answer me.”
“ We’re here for your map piece. To get the Vaze. Bleh.” I say, still trying to get the taste out of my mouth.

“ Oh really? That’s an ambitious thing to say. How do you plan on accomplishing this exactly?”
“ However we can.” Meza says coldly. ( Sorry for the pun.)

“ Yeah, that and we already have four of the pieces of the map.” I tell the wolf. She tilts her head.

“ No, really?”
“ Yeah!” She walks up to me, sniffing my pack.

“ You might, or you might just be trying to trick me so I’ll let you into the base!”

“ I can show you.”
“ How do I know it’s not fake?”
“ Uh… Because it isn’t?” I say hopefully. Meza sighs.

“ I don’t buy it doggie. Now leave!”

“ Eh, actually we aren’t leaving till we have what we want so… Yeah.” I tell her. Now the wolf is getting angry.

“ You know I can beat you in seconds. Now go!”
“ Woah, hold up now!” Another wolf walks over to us. He’s larger than the girl. He’s blue and white. “ Blitz, good to see you again.”
“ What?” Meza asks.

“ I don’t know you.” I say, confused.

“ You might not, that’s fine. We saw each other while on hunting duty, oh, about three weeks ago.”

“ Then that’s why I don’t know you at all.”

“ Of course. I’m Sibran! Leader of my Wolves.” He shakes his fur coat. “ I overheard you’re here for our map piece.”
“ Mhm.”
“ I gotta kill you for that.”
“ Certainly.”
“ But, I’m bored. So, I’ll make it more fun.” This shocked all three of us, even the female wolf next to me.

“ Sir you have to be kidding.” She says.

“ I am not. Why is it so bad? It’ll add some fun to this place. Trust me it’ll still be in our favor. But I’m a man of honor. If one has honor than they will go far. So, do you accept this challenge I will give to you?” Meza and I look at each other, then back to him.

“ What kind?”
“ I can’t say until you accept, otherwise I kill you. It’s simple really.”
“ Fine, we’ll do your thingie.” And we’ll probably die in the process. I think to myself. Sibran’s eyes light up.

“ Great! Now, follow me inside, it’s cooler in there.”

It was a heck of a lot warmer in the mansion. I sighed with relief as soon as I stepped through the doors. Meza shakes herself off. Sibran goes over to a phone implanted in the wall, redesigned by some wolves to be spoken into without the need of fingers.

“ Everyone, this is your leader. I am activating challenge mode. Be ready.” He turns to us. “ Now then. What will happen is this: There are two cards hidden in this mansion. One of you will find each of them. Once you find them, they together will reveal a riddle. Solve that riddle, it’ll tell you a number, that numbers goes with one of these doors,” He gestures down a hallway. Meza and I peek down. There has to be at least thirty doors in here. I’ve no idea what you’d use them all for. “ That room has the map in it.”

“ What’s stopping us from just checking them ourselves?” I wonder.

“ Easy. The group of wolves inside will eat your heart before you can react!” Sibran says happily. I gulp.

“ Okay. Any other rules?” Meza asks, keeping calm.

“ Well, the usual. Don’t break anything. You can look around, but don’t do something you wouldn’t normally when in someone’s house.”
“ Why are you doing this?” I ask.

“ I can just kill you now.” He offers.

“ Actually, we can do the challenge.” He smiles.
“ Very well. You can go now.” He walks away. Two other wolves come over by us, blocking the double doors.

“ Welp, Meza, what side of the mansion do you wanna check?” I ask.

“ I’ll go left down here. You go upstairs and check around. Let’s meet here once we have what we need.”
“ Got it! Good luck!” I say.

“ You too…” She turns away, heading for the living room and kitchen area. There’s a fire place blazing. Deciding not to wonder how that works, I walk up the icy stairway to the bedrooms. I open the door, expecting to be ripped apart immediately. But, there was no one in there. Not a single furball besides me. Maybe they were all hiding in that one hallway, ready to eat me and Meza up if we chose the wrong door. Well, at least it allows me to look around freely. The fact that the Wolves had entire human beds all to themselves was disgusting. Even the Cats didn’t use beds. It just wasn’t that comfortable for an animal to do so. We get so hot when trying to use them the proper way. It’s normally easier for us to just sleep on the ground, with a mat or so underneath us. I know a lot of dogs don’t even use mats. Just solid ground. I know that humans don’t understand, but I’m just giving info here. I sniff around, seeing if I smell something that might be an old piece of paper, or a card. I inspect the beds. Most of them were clean of anything. Some of them had uh, very odd smells. I swear, it better not be normal for Wolves to piss on their beds all the time. Because I smelled so much of it, it really wasn’t funny after the fifth bed in a row. I’m still confused on how the beds don’t just crack the ice below them. Maybe it’s a special kind of ice, that is really strong! Eh, as long as it works I guess.

There was nothing in the bedrooms, so I head over to the closets. There were four closets on the upper floor. Each one being filled with old human junk that the Wolves didn’t seem to use, ever. Toys, game devices, giant pillows with characters on them. Did any of this stuff even function properly? I dunno, it doesn’t matter now. None of them had any cards. Next to the closets, oh boy, were the upper bathrooms. I brace myself before entering. To my surprise, they weren’t that bad. They somehow smelled better than the bedroom! How? I’ll just take what I can get I guess. I begrudgingly smelled each toilet, and urinal. Actually, these Wolves couldn’t use any of this stuff. Well, they could, but it’d take a lot of effort to do so. Maybe that’s why it didn’t smell so bad. Unfortunately, no card smelling paper in there.

I exit the bathrooms, feeling pretty annoyed. Then I notice a small table against the wall in the middle of the upper walkway. On top of it is an even smaller chest. I walk over, gently opening the chest with my nose. A small white card is laying inside. I sigh.

“ Yeah of course. So obvious no one would think to look.” I grab it. I go back down the icy steps, and wait for Meza. She arrives about half a minute later.

“ You have yours?” She asks, a white thing in her mouth. I spit out my card.

“ Yup. I’m guessing you have yours?” She does the same.

“ Yeah. Let’s move ‘em together.” We do so. Each card before had some writing on it that was cut off. Now we can see the whole riddle. It read the following:
How many doggie doors do you need to make three human doors? How many half human doors would you have from that total amount?

Once we have both read it, we stand there, dumbfounded.
“ Uh, what?” Is my first response.

“ Ok, let’s break this down.” Meza suggests.

“ Good idea.” I say. I have no idea what’s going on, so I decide that following her would be the best course of action. Meza sits down, her tail swishing back and forth.

“ Ok, so. First part. How tall is a doggie door compared to one human door?”
“ Don’t ask me. I wouldn’t know this.”

“ What if you did know it?”
“ Then I’d probably confuse myself and still not understand.” She smirks.

“ Alright fine, but let’s focus.”
“ Of course.” I stare at the question. “ I have no clue.”
“ Agh, okay. There’s some doggie doors left over in my clan’s city. Most of them were burned. But if I remember right, then one of them was about a �" of the whole height of a human door.”
“ So… then 3/3 is the whole height?”
“ Yeah. So three doors for one human door.”
“ Okay. Then what?”
“ Blitz read the question!”
“ Ok ok!” I inspect it again. “ Three human doors, hm…”
“ Just multiply three times three.”
“ Yeah of course… Uh.” I searched my brain for the answer. “ I was never good at math. Most dogs aren’t.”
“ Oh my- it’s nine!”
“ Oh yeah! I knew that.”
“ Sure you did. Now, half human doors.”
“ Well, that’s just half of the number we just got right? Cause it’s the human doors, but halved?”
“ What a great explanation.”
“ Ok well, I mean-”
“ It’s fine.” Meza smiles again. “ Well then nine cut in half, is like... A little more then four.”
“ Four?”
“ A little more than four.”
“ Oh. So like 4.5?”
“ Yeah, I think so.”
“ Is that certain.”
“ I dunno how to check.”
“ I don’t either.” We both sit there.

“ Go see if it’s right.” Meza suddenly tells me.
“ ‘Scuse me what?” I ask, surprised.

“ Sibran said to check the door number.”
“ Why would they have 4.5 as a number?”
“ Maybe you would find out if you actually checked.”

“ Okay, fine. But can you come with me?”
“ I’m not dying.”
“ Me neither. But if I guess wrong we both die anyway, so.”

“ So, you want to be near me?” My face gets a little hot.

“ Maybe.”
“ Yeah, so do I.” She gets up. “ You first, Blitz.”

With her next to me it was a lot easier to go up to the door, and open it. I have no idea why each door has a .5 one to match it. There’s 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, and onward. All the way to 30. It was a light green door, 4.5 embedded in a purple plaque. I was kinda afraid to open it. Meza nudges me, and I jump up, grabbing the knob with my mouth. I turn it, and drop down. I ease open the door. Inside was entirely darkness, except for a singular light bulb, shining down on a brown, ripped piece of paper. I don’t move at all. Meza quickly dashes in, snatching the map piece, and returning to my side.

“ You need to be better at math.” She says.
“ Thank you I know that now.” I hear footsteps behind us.

“ So, you’ve found it, well done!” We turn, as Sibran, and dozens of other wolves, surround us. “ But, to be legit. You couldn’t have expected this to be so easy. I still have to challenge you further.”
“ How exactly?” I ask nervously, already fearing the answer. Sibran laughs.

“ By attempting to murder you!”
“ Why am I not surprised.” Meza says, sighing. Sibran steps forward, along with three other wolves. The others stay back, creating a barrier around us.

“ Oh, this won’t be to the death, like it normally is.”
“ No?” I get confused by this. Death is always how it ends, for, most of the time.

“ Nah, I can’t get killed here. Instead, we’ll see if you hurt me enough to where I yield. If I do so, then you can leave.”
“ Are you joking?”
“ No. I like honor remember? So my honor is saying that if you beat me I’ll let you leave.”

“ But why don’t we-”
“ Blitz shut up. This is fine enough, we can take him!” Meza snarls at me. I stop talking after that.

“ Well, here we come!” Sibran says, and he sends his three wolves to kill us.

As per the norm, I got the larger amount. Two of them shot directly at me! It’s probably because I’m a dog. I know that’s what it is. Meza was able to take hers out easy. She picks up the wolf, clawing into its belly, then slamming it against the wall. I roll to the side as the first one attempts to bite me. I quickly shift my feet, allowing me to spring at the wolf, biting into its side. It howls in pain, trying to throw me off. I lunge for its neck, snagging the kill. The second one I’d forgotten about. It clamps its teeth down on my tail. I whip around, put it stays put. Meza runs up, digging her front claws into the wolf’s bottom. This causes it to let go, leaving me open to bite its face, ending its life. As the bodies hit the floor, Sibran chuckles.

“ Well done. My turn.” I realize at this point, that doing all this fighting while wearing packs may be hindering us somewhat. But it hasn’t done any bad so far, so I left it on.

The Wolf leader had a power I wasn’t aware of. He charges at me. Then, just before he could make contact, he vanishes. He reappears next to Meza, slashing her side. She moans and jumps back. She tries to swipe at him, but he teleports again, behind me. He makes to bite, but I leap out of the way just in time. We stand there, facing each other. If we couldn’t fight him directly, we needed way to trick him. Meza attempts to hold Sibran in place, but he is still able to teleport out of her hold. He appears behind her, slashing again. I watch, coming up with a plan. I run up next to her, whispering.

“ Distract him. I know what we can do.”
“ Okay.” She dashes forth, stopping in front of Sibran. They eye each other. One smirking, the other in pain. I summon a chunk of ice, and place it next to Sibran. Doing the same on every side of him.

“ You know I can just escape this right?” He mocks.

“ Yeah. But you should know, there’s a flea on your back, and it’s multiplying.” Meza tells him.

“ You’re joking.” I crack a small bit of ice, gently waving it across Sibran’s back. He jumps in surprise. “ What?! I just cleaned myself!”
“ And they are multiplying. It looks gross from down here.” Meza chides him. The Wolf leader spins around in a circle, trying to get the non-existent bugs off of him. He’s distracted. I focus hard, even though I’m getting tired again. I take a large ice chunk from the floor, and hover it over the wolf.

“ Leader watch out!” Someone from the crowd yells. I’m pretty sure that’s cheating. But it was too late. The chunk drops, smacking Sibran hard on the head. He collapses on the ground, unconscious.

Meza and I stand there, not sure what to do. I half expected for the rest of the clan to gang attack us. But they instead moved aside, allowing exit out the back of the hall.

“ You’re just letting us go?” I ask. Meza gives me a look like, Do you WANT to die?

“ Yeah. We follow anything Sibran says.” One of the wolves speaks up. He’s orange and black. “ If he says you can go, then you can go. Don’t let us change our mind. This is a special opportunity.” Meza does the smart thing and simply walks out, the map piece in her pack. I was gonna say something, but I decided against it. I hastily follow her out of the ice palace.

We trod through the snow, making camp in another cave. This one made naturally. I set down my pack, and Meza puts down hers. We exchange the last bit of medicine. Afterwards, I pull out the map pieces.

“ Meza, should we piece the whole thing together now?” I ask. She nods, laying down. I hadn’t realized too much until now how tired she is. Sure, I’ve been tired enough, but I haven’t thought too much about what my partner was feeling. I place the map parts on the rocky ground, pushing them into place. “ Okay, let’s look at this.”

“ I think you put it together wrong.” Meza tells me.

“ I did?” I look closer at it. “ Oh. Hold on.” I reshuffle the pieces.

“ I think that’s fine now.”

“ Okay good.” The map continues from the forest, into a desert, through the city… wait no. Now that we had the whole thing, there were multiple branching paths easily visible. There was a small symbol, that had a V on it. I’m guessing that’s where the Vaze is. An orange line lead to it. Going from where we were currently, in the tundra, it went past it, and zigzagged through the slopes next to here. The stone shore, near the ocean. A certain spot along the terrain is where the symbol was.

“ Jeez, uh. Well I know where it is generally.” I say. Meza is on her back, staring at the ceiling.

“ You do?”

“ Yeah. There’s a marker for it. You know the shoreline? Somewhere in there.”
“ Oh yeah. Huh, that’s the last place I would’ve checked.”
“ But it’s close so... “
“ That’s good. Can you be any more specific or is that it?”
“ Judging from here? That’s it. Somewhere along there.”
“ Alright. I guess we just have to keep our eyes peeled for something that looks off.”
“ What does ‘off’ mean, especially when we are considering humans?”
“ I dunno. Maybe we’ll see it, and we’ll just know.”
“ Sure, hopefully.”

I lay down, kinda close to Meza. We should’ve been going for the Vaze, but something was keeping me from going.

“ Meza?”

“ Yeah?”
“ I’m worried about something.”
“ What is it?”
“ Where the Vaze is. Do you think, there is a… human there?”
“ What?”
“ A human.”
“ Why would there be a human there. They all left decades ago.”
“ I know, but. This was an achievement for them right?”
“ Yeah, one of the things they were most proud of.”
“ Then, judging from how they act in the media we’ve seen, they could’ve stayed behind. At least some of them, or just one.” Meza flops over on her side, looking me dead in the eyes.

“ Blitz. If there really is a human there, we can handle them. You’re the strongest dog I’ve ever seen. I have to admit I’m not bad myself. If we have made it this far, then no human can stop us. Do you believe that?” I look her in the eyes.
“ Uh, yes! I do! It’s just, how strong are they?”
“ No one knows Blitz. No animal in recent times has found one, let alone fought them. Anyone who has is just a myth at this point.”
“ The Wolves probably have.”
“ Yeah, but they won’t tell us anything.”
“ You’re right. And I’m not going back in there.”
“ Me neither. I’d get hypothermia next time I do.”
“ Heh, yeah… Thank you Meza.”
“ For what?”
“ Just for, doing this with me. It’s made it a lot more fun, and easier.” We both stare at each other. That same feeling from before. When we were supposed to kill each other back in the mountain valley. I’m not sure how, but it was getting hot in the icy cave.

“ O-oh.” Meza stutters. “ Well, it’s been fun doing this with you too! I uh, don’t think I would’ve done it with anyone else.”
“ Me neither.” I swear my heart was beating so fast at this point. I wanted to say that phrase that involves the letter L. But I didn’t. I fell asleep again. You can’t blame me, it’s what we animals do.

When I woke up, Meza had once again set up my food. She was on the opposite side of the cave, looking at the map.

“ Hello. This is the last bit of food we have.” She tells me as I sit up, and begin eating.
“ Oh, dang. Well, now we really have to pull this off.”
“ If not we can live in the wild.”
“ I know but I like my clan’s food.” Meza chuckles.

“ Yeah, so do I. But again, we got this.”
“ Are you gonna eat too?”
“ I ate already. I’ve been studying the map. I see what you meant. We’ll just have to search around the rocky slopes until we find it I guess.”
“ Yeah that seems like the best action.” I finish eating after a couple of minutes. After, I slip on my pack. Meza gets up, heading for the cave’s entrance.

“ Are you not bringing your pack?” I wonder.

“ No. We don’t need it. Just yours so we can carry the Vaze back home.”
“ Ah yeah. Good thinking.” I head outside with her. The cold stings a bit as we head for the stone shore. I wasn’t certain if we would encounter any humans or not. But either way, I wasn’t walking back without the Vaze.

I’ve actually never been to the shoreline before. Well, that isn’t saying much, considering that I haven’t been to most of the places that I’ve been visiting lately. I only knew about the other bases because we have to know about them. Otherwise we can’t avoid them. Actually, that reminds me of all the orders that old Max would make us Dogs follow. We did have good reason to listen to them, since they kept us safe. It’s just funny that now all of those rules have been broken, by me. About a week or so ago, I would’ve been petrified of doing what I have. But now, in my current situation, it’s the most exhilarating feeling. Climbing up the rocky hills, and down toward the oceanic beach. I feel like I’ve done more than I ever have before. I wonder how Meza felt before all this. From what she tells me, it doesn’t sound like she was very afraid of going places  before. It’s part of a Cat’s nature to want to explore things, I guess. I could ask, but this is the most important part of our mission right now, so I’ll save the other questions for later.

Speaking of our mission, finding the Vaze was easy. Or, at least where its location was. As we make our way down toward the water, I lose my focus. I’m thinking too much about string cheese again. I slip on a smooth piece of stone, falling to the right side. I land on a trap door built into the ground.

“ Blitz! Are you okay?” Meza calls up above. I get up, shaking my head. Stone is not a fun thing to fall on, wouldn’t recommend it.

“ Yeah, I’m fine.” I notice the door under my paw. It’s grey, painted to look like the surrounding terrain. The only reason I know it’s something different is because it has number on it, drawn on in black ink. 6. No idea what that means. It also smells like wood, not rock. “ Uh, Meza, look at this.”

“ What’s up?” She climbs down gracefully, landing at my side. She sees the trap door, and sniffs it. “ Oh, is this it?”
“ Probably. I don’t think stuff like this is too common around these parts.”
“ Ya don’t say…” She sniffs it again, checking the perimeter. “ There’s a knob here, look.”
“ There is?” I focus in on where she’s looking. A small silver knob is sticking out of the door. “ I can open it.” I take hold of it with my mouth, pulling it up and over. It thuds on the rock next to me, the way opened. We both look downward. A set of dark steps going down into the earth. Some light is barely visible down below.

“ Well, I guess this is it.” I say.

“ Probably. You wanna go first?” Meza asks me.
“ Not really.”
“ Aw, are you sure?”
“ Yes I’m sure!”
“ K fine, I’ll go.” Meza starts to walk down the steps. Each foot moving slowly and deliberately, in case of danger. I try to do the same as I follow inside.

Just going down the stairs, I was already sticking out my tongue, sweating of course. My heart was racing with anxiety. I had to manually steady my feet, since they were shaking so much. The walls weren't bare. It was hard to see clearly, but what I could see scared me. Pictures, of other animals. Not just normal pictures, no. Ones of Dogs, Cats, Wolves, every clan’s animal, mutilated. Cut in half, spread open like a toy. Heads severed, legs ripped off. Something’s pale face smiling next to the gore. Words written in crimson. No more. Will not stand for it. You won’t hurt me. I will stand my ground. I am in control. I read these as we descended.

“ M-Meza? Are you seeing this..?” I ask weakly.

“ Yeah… I don’t understand. These are real photographs, not fakes.”
“ ...Why?...”
“ I don’t know why…” I couldn’t tell if she was shaking like I was. I was relieved to finally reach the bottom of the stairs. We enter a large room, carved into the ground. There is a brown wood table in the middle, with some shelves along the right and left walls. Against the very back wall, is what looks like a shrine. There is a red and white rug, with candles on either side, glowing softly. In the middle, is a still beating heart. I avert my eyes, looking more intently at the shelves. That didn’t help. Along them where the same kind of stuff I’d seen in the photos. I can’t describe it, you already know what they are. I feel like I’m gonna vomit. I’ve never done that before, and I don’t want this to be my first experience of it. I step back to the wall behind us, my tail between my legs.

“ What….?”

“ I don’t…” Meza begins to say. We are both at a loss for words. Who would do this? A human.

Someone steps out of the shadows from the left wall, from behind the shelf. We both look up at it. Its palish tan, with brown hair on its head, and down its chest. It is wearing a red loose shirt, with blue jeans and brown shoes. Its eyes are red, and strained. Its mouth twitching with insanity. It looks at us, and smiles.

“ Ah, two more of you huh?” It laughs maniacally, stepping forward. Meza backs up against the wall next to me. This the first time I’ve ever seen her so afraid. She’s shaking, her eyes filled with fear. For once, she doesn’t know what to do. The human steps closer to us, holding a red stained knife. The same red that drips down its hands, and lips.

“ Why’d you two come down here huh? Was it because you were searching for something? Were you lost? Did you find this place by mistake?” It looks us dead in the eyes. “ Naw, you two are looking for something, aren’t you?” It picks up something from off the table next to it. It’s a gold and red cup, with a small control panel attached to the bottom. The Vaze. “ You want this, I know it. There’s been many squads to come down here, trying to steal this from me. They never return back to their homes. Did your little clans tell you that I was here? I bet they wouldn’t.” It sets the Vaze back down. It kneels down, gently touching my face with its blood red hand. “ Any animal who finds me never leaves alive. Never, I can’t allow it. You disgusting creatures took over our land. You thought it was perfectly fine to take what WASN’T YOURS.” It was practically screaming now. It begins to touch Meza. “ It’s sad really. You’re such beautiful creatures, you really are. Too bad you made the wrong mistake.” It gets up again, looking at the knife in its hand. “ Funny, I never would’ve thought I would be here. I was born during the end of the War. My parents were murdered in front of me. My dad was taken away from me by other humans. But my mother, the one who cared for me the most, was ended by YOU. Yeah, your kind killed her. Once the other humans started to leave, you animals flooded the area fast. Too fast. The remaining humans, who were defenseless, were slaughtered by the dozens. I had to watch, as I ran away. Unable to help my brothers and sisters. Killed by the same creatures who were thought to be our friends. I came here, and made my home. In a place where I knew no one would find me. I did eventually come back, to nothing. To nothing but the guts of the people I once lived with. At that point my mind snapped. I had no love for animals, no more. I made a vow. I would survive in this continent.” It faced us. “ If any animal crossed my path, well.” It waved around the room. “ You know what I do. I love it! The only feeling I have left. The sensation of murder. Of slowly and painfully ending the pathetic lives of those who ruined mine. Forced me into this terrible life I live.” It points its blade at us. “ But, why am I telling you all this, when you’re about to die? Come here little ones, and accept your fate. As I have mine. Let me decorate my walls with your intestines.”

By this point my mind was moving too fast for me to handle. What was all this about animals killing humans? That wasn’t what Max told me. I don’t have time to think about it now. I have a human to try and not die to. It lunged at us quicker than I could even see. It would’ve cut my head right off, if Meza hadn’t picked me up with her powers, and chucked me across the room. I slam into the shrine, bursting the heart. As gross as that is, I don’t let it bother me. I get up, surveying the circumstance. The human has Meza in its hand. She’s frantically trying to escape. Clawing and biting at its arm. It doesn’t even flinch at the attacks. It seems to be enjoying it actually. Letting her cut into him, as blood flies off, hitting the floor. Meza attempts to pick it up with her power, but to no avail. It raises the knife, ready to gouge it into her. I become enraged. No way is this all going to fall apart just as we reach the end.

I pick up the table, causing the Vaze to fall off. I send it hurtling at the human, slamming it into its back. It staggers forward, not letting go of Meza. It turns around, still smiling.

“ Seems you are stronger than you look. That’s great. A challenge is always more rewarding.” It pins Meza against wall. It uses its knife to stab her right arm into the stone, dangling her there. She screams out in pain as red liquid drips down her fur. Processing what I’m seeing is, barely possible. I only have one thought in my head now: That thing needs to die. I run at it full force, jumping at its stomach, ready to bite. It catches me,holding me up with both arms. I flail desperately. It laughs, slamming me into the ground and kicking me back against the wall. I get up groggily, my stomach throbbing. My vision is blurry from the kick. The human stalks toward me, picking up something from the shelf. A pistol. It aims it at me, getting close. “ You tried, didn’t you little doggie? Too bad, now you are gonna die by my pistol!” It says mockingly. I look around. Meza is still on the wall, losing consciousness. I’m about to be shot and killed instantly. The Vaze is laying on the ground underneath Meza. I know what I have to do.

I stand up, hard as that is with my feet in pain. I focus my entire attention on what I’m about to do. The human is looming over me, its gun directly over my head.

“ Look at me dog. I wanna see your eyes as you die.” It tells me. I keep my head lowered. I summon every bit of my will, using my entire power consumption to the max. First, the cave starts to shake, slowly. “ Huh? What is that?” The human wonders, looking around. Then, the shaking gets more violent. The knife holding down Meza is popped out of the wall. She hits the ground, groaning. The shaking gets more intense. Shards of rock fall from the ceiling, the shelves shudder, falling over. “ What are you doing?!” The human fires its pistol, blasting my ear drums. I’m not hit, I’m dashing over to Meza. She looks up at me, her eyes dark, and distant. She is going to lose conscious any second now.

“ Meza, if you can hear me. Hold onto me, we are leaving.” Thankfully, she did, climbing up onto my back. She wasn’t very light. That and I was already getting tired from what I was doing. But I manage. I grab the Vaze, and run for the stairs.

“ HEY! GET BACK HERE!” The human yells after me. I could move faster than he could, which was the only reason I reached the surface. The moment I did, I released all my power. The cave collapsed in on itself, crushing the human down with it.

I can’t rest now. The entire rocky slope was affected. Boulders and pieces of earth were sliding downward, heading for the ocean. I make my way up, dodging pieces of stone, almost losing my grip many times. I climb over the last bit of rock, and walk back down the hill, where the snow began to fill. I fall over, fatigue covering me like a blanket. In my blurry vision I see someone heading toward me. Its a pack of Wolves. Two smaller wolfs, and Sibran.

“ It is them.” He looks at me.
“ What should we do sir?” Asks the wolf on his left.

“ Hm. He came from the rocks, where the shuddering was. And, what is this?” He sniffs the Vaze in my mouth.

“ Sir, that’s… that’s…” The wolf on the right says.

“ It is. The Vaze.” Sibran smiles. “ Well, ya did it.”

“ What should we do?”

“ I know what we do. We get them back to the Dog clan.”
“ Sir, but that’s-”
“ I know. But I think Max’ll think differently once he sees this. Put all the rivalry stuff aside for a moment and come on.” The two wolves pick me up, placing me on Sibran’s back. One of the wolves takes Meza. They carry us all the way back to the mountain valley. Along the way, we pass the Monkeys and Birds. Each species watching us, in shock. They can’t believe what we’ve done. All the fighting over this one object, to try and find it. Done.

I’m placed on the ground near the front of my base, with Meza at my side. I stand up, seeing Sibran. He winks at me. “ Go, show ‘em what you have.” He walks away with his wolves. I look down at Meza, who is still unconscious. I pick up the Vaze from off the ground. I inspect the control panel. It has a selection of an endless amount of food options. I choose something called a cheese burger. The cup shakes for a moment. Inside is a freshly crafted burger. I eat it. It tasted great! I pick it up and head for the front entrance. The two dog guards see me.

“ Hey! You aren’t allowed here any-” He stops, seeing the condition I’m in, and the Vaze. “ What..?”
“ Yeah...It’s what you think it is.” I say softly.

“ Show us.” Says the left guard. I do so, producing some salad. The two guards gasp, completely blown away. “ It does exist…”
“ No way…you…”
“ Yeah. Can I show Max?” They look at each other.

“ I-I suppose so. He needs to see this.”

So, now I’ll skip ahead a bit. I did show Max the Vaze. To which he was so speechless it was amazing. He wouldn’t believe it at first, but after awhile he warmed up to it, after many meals. He said that I would be able to live in the clan base again. I thought that was cool. But I didn’t give the Vaze to him, not yet. I had some conditions first. One, we had to let every clan use the Vaze, at least a little bit. Two, Meza needed to be able to stay here for as long as she wants. And three, his policy on banning people would be lessened. He hated this at first, but I didn’t budge. Finally, after an hour of persuading him, he gave in. Meza was able to stay, as long as she didn’t cause trouble. His rules weren’t as strict, and we went to the other clans to share the Vaze. The other leaders were unsure at first, but they too gave in. Everyone shared the power of the Vaze. Getting food was no longer an issue. The Vaze itself would be passed around every week to another clan, in a certain order. The Dogs called me a hero, which I was fine with. I liked the new attention! But I also wanted more of it to go to Meza. She was the reason I was able to do this in the first place, so she gets praise just like I do. It’s suffice to say that my life was a lot better after our journey. I could do more of what I wanted, with delicious food always available. But the best thing by far, was my new partner.

Here I am now, at the edge of the valley, where the city starts. Meza is sitting down, looking into the horizon. The sun is setting, giving off a warm orange hue. I walk up next to her, sitting down.

“ This has been quite the adventure, hasn’t it?” She asks me.

“ Definitely. I didn’t realize this continent had some many bad smells. I’m still trying to convince my nose not to leave me.” Meza laughs.

“ I’m sure it’ll stay. This was pretty fun honestly.”

“ Yeah, it really was.”

“ Hey… Blitz?”

“ Yeah?”
“ You remember that weird feeling right?”
“ The one I keep getting? What about it?”
“ Well… I think, now that we are done with all of this, we should, speak it.” My heart is racing again.

“ S-speak it?” She turns, and looks at me. Her eyes sparkling in the sunset.
“ Mhm. You do know what I’m talking about right?”
“ Is this another math problem?” She laughs again.

“ No, not this time. But we may be getting to that soon.”
“ Yay.” She smiles at me.

“ So, are you gonna say it, or do I have to first?”
“ I’m not entirely sure what you mean.”
“ Blitz, yes you do.” I do, I know exactly what she means. I breathe in deeply.
“ Okay fine. I’ll say it.” I’m quiet for a moment. “ Meza… I love you.” In this moment, anything can happen, apparently. What ends up happening, she presses her nose against mine. Just so you know that’s our form of kissing.

“ I love you too Blitz.” We continue to touch noses for the next few minutes. The sun dips down below the horizon, cloaking us in darkness. Neither of us move. We stay there, all night long. Sure, someone could’ve snuck up on us, but I don’t think that’ll happen. Not with Mezasokuri at my side. When I’m the Domination Dog.

Author's Note

This was an older story I'm putting on here now.