Re: The Earth Daughter.

[LillyanaKabal]

CHAPTER ONE
The Beginning


1: Jane sat on the bed; a layer of blood soaked into the sheets and stained them red. It ran into her clothes and her hair and gathered in a pool around her apart from the few drops that got though the mattress and dripped onto the floor. The blood was caused by her but the reason behind it was her father, a small pudgy man who was scared of the world and made himself feel big by beating up his daughters and his wife. He did not tell anyone about this however because it was not exactly a thing you bragged about, but it still gave him the satisfaction.

Jane shivered, she felt cold as the blood from her wrists ran out in a plentiful amount but it was not just the loss of blood that made her feel cold. An unnaturally cold bite was in the air, one that belonged to the heart of winter, not the eve of summer as it was. Jane thought it was an important point-if summer didn’t come, the plants would die and the bees would not come, and if there were no plants, and then there would be less oxygen and more Carbon in the air, which would be bad for people as a whole. She laughed softly, and then cringed in pain as her wrists protested against the movement by shooting fiery pain all across her body, it was amazing what things she thought of when lying half dead on her bed, but then she had had more abstract thought patterns.

Tears escaped her deep green eyes, not that she wanted them to, they simply appeared and ran down her face, like small, salty drops of water. Which, thinking about it for a second, was exactly what they were. Not that Jane could think properly right now, she didn’t have enough blood to think properly, and so things that were meant to be obvious where not really such.

The reason she had cut her wrists-again, it was a regular thing for her- was a result of her father’s actions and Jane knew he was going to punish her for trying to kill herself but she would cross that bridge when she came to it. She was too busy bleeding and worrying about the weather. It annoyed her that no matter how she cut her wrists or how much blood came out she never passed on, there was several times when she bled so much that a normal person would not have a drop left in their body but she still awoke the next day. She would still collapse from blood loss and still feel the great amount of pain that was associated with slashing any part of your body open with a sharp Implement, but never die, a fact that irked her a lot-what was the point of not dying if you where still going to collapse and shiver from the other side effects of slashing your wrists wide open and watching the red river run out onto whatever you happened to be around at the time?

She never knew why she had such a thin frame either, it was not like she was underfed-her father tried but she always got plenty of food to eat, mainly though Eliot’s adventures in the kitchen- but no matter how much she ate she always stayed thin and weak, it was like the world was taunting her with a combination of weakness and an inability to die, and she did not like being taunted in the slightest, it was one of her peeves, along with her dad’s continued existence and broccoli, whoever invented broccoli must have really hated everyone with a taste-bud. But then, Mr Broccoli Inventor might not have had taste buds.

The things the unconscious mind thinks of when laid in a pool of blood and nearly in its grasp are far beyond the control of the person whose mind it belongs to, not that Jane had much control over her mind to begin with. She just had to go along with the ride and hope it is not too bad. This time she thought of her second father-not an official father but one who had adopted the mantle none the less- and his Familiar. She thought of the times when Eliot and Silverfang messed around with each other, she thought of times when Eliot cooked a plethora of different foods, she thought of times when she watched a movie using Silverfang or Eliot as a cushion to lay her head on, she remembered times when her sisters, Beth and Nehvna, would come round and they would have a party, she remembered playing card games with her sisters and Eliot. She remembered happy days. It was better than thinking about where she was. She also remembered-too much lesser delight, not that she had the energy to complain about it now, being so far into the grip of unconsciousness- days with her mother, they were nice but she had left Jane all alone with her father, and for that Jane eternally disliked her mother.

The blood had managed to get though the mattress in a much larger amount and was now pooling on the ground, despite her strange inability to die she was in no way immune to unconsciousness, something that happened to her in the middle of her memory of happy days.

2: Jane woke up and immediately saw that she was not in her own room, the room she was in was nowhere in her house which meant that she was in someone else’s house. Jane tried to run though the options of who would be able to get her out of her house and into their own when she saw bandages across her wrists. They looked fresh and they were tied in a way that kept them tight but did not hurt the cuts on her wrist. Feeling extremely confused she laid back on her bed, the way the bandages where wrapped around her wrists looked professionally done.

While thinking about her location she spotted a glass of water. Jane was feeling very thirsty from the blood loss so she stepped off the bed to grab it, her foot landed on something soft and warm as if it was a living rug of some kind.
“Ahhhh! I’m getting crushed!” The rug shouted, causing Jane to quickly pull her foot back onto the bed, the rug then stood up and revealed that it was not a rug but actually a person with an abundance of fur. “Ohh, I seem to have been sleep-changing” he said, the fur reseeding until it was all gone, the man that was left standing was tall and had broad shoulders that looked like they could carry a lot of weight without much trouble, he also had a goofy smile that never seemed to waver.

“Silver!” She shouted in surprise as he clutched his side, Silver’s appearance had told her whose house it was without ever speaking.
“I think your dainty feet broke my ribs” he said, breathing deeply before stretching his other hand out. “I can see the light, I must go towards the light” he said before looking like he was electrified, he then collapsed and spoke softly “It was a bug zapper” Jane had since realized that she did not actually do anything to him so she laughed, Silverfang was forever the comedian. This caused Silverfang to stand up and bow. “Thank you. Thank you” he said as he blew kisses to an imaginary crowd before turning to Jane with a suddenly serious look to him. “Now, to the serious business” he told Jane.

”....And then I woke up here” Jane told Silverfang as she finished recounting the events of the night.
“Want me to kill him?” Silverfang asked. He made this question a lot and every time he did he was totally serious about it.
“No because even if you could get past his Familiar-which you can’t by the way, so don’t give me any macho talk- what would his death bring? Eliot is too young to make an adoption without a partner I would go to my closest living relative which is my mum and since she did not take any of us with her when she ran away I don’t want to go to her now, and I would never be able to see you again which would totally suck” She told him, it was a good and rational argument but Silver still grumbled.
“Thanks by the way” she said to Silver with a shy smile.
“Thanks for what?” He asked. “Bringing me here, bandaging my wrists, getting me out of that bloody t-shirt” She said, reeling off each reason for thanks before she smiled and moved up close but just as she got to him he heard Eliot shout “Im home” so Jane quickly recoiled with shock but Silverfang caught her hand pulled her back, kissing her as she reached him. It was a warm kiss, different from anything she had ever had before. With a hint of dog breath.
She could feel her heart pounding against her chest as they locked their lips together. This was one of the best feelings she had ever felt and knew it must be that strange emotion she never thought she would feel. Love.

“Anyone home?” Eliot shouted again and Silver broke off the kiss to shout back.
“Yea I’m up here and we have a plus one” he told Eliot, who laughed.
“Plus one wouldn’t happen to be my baby sister at all would it?” Beth asked as Jane and Silver headed out of the room, Jane was transfixed on the feeling of Silvers lips on hers so Silverfang guided her down the stairs.

Eliot stood at an average height with an average build and average length hair. He was very average to look at but it was his heart that set him aside from everyone else, he never turned down anyone who needed help and never hesitated extend his hand to any who needed it. Beth, however, was physically Eliot’s opposite; she stood a foot taller than most people in the street and had a wide chest-with equally big breasts- and broader shoulders than most girls had, they were nowhere near as big as Silver’s shoulders but they were still big for a girl.

“Hello Beth, how are you?” Silver asked, as Jane managed to snap out of her trance and smile, hugging Beth tightly.
“I’ve been good thanks, work has been rather nice lately as we are fully staffed” She told him, hugging Jane back; she hugged her just as tightly but tried not to crush her with her arms. As much as Jane tried to hide it Beth always knew how her baby sister was feeling without her ever saying a word and right now there was something seriously bothering her but she decided not to press the point just yet.

“Where are Nehvna and Satyr?” Silverfang asked Beth as they followed Eliot into the kitchen as standby in case something he was cooking blew up, it was not easy cooking for seven people on your own especially when Eliot had a habit of experimenting with the cooking ingredients.
“Nehvna is trying to convince her little angel to come outside when we left, she told us she would catch up but she hasn’t yet. Satyr is somewhere else, probably reading a book or something” Beth told Silverfang as Eliot started telling them what he was going to cook and read out the ingredients needed for the dish, he always liked help in the kitchen.
3:
“Sorry I was a pain to everyone I really didn’t mean to be” Avrion said with a sad face that looked like it was about to cry, but then every face Avrion pulled looked like it was going to cry. That and the fact that her frame was more akin to a stick than an actual person made Avrion look very weedy but that was not the case. For the most part, Nehvna would usually tell Avrion-in several different ways- to stop being so depressive and smile more. Then she would follow it with a compliment about how nice Avrion’s smile was, and how she would love to see it more often. However, this particular time, she was more interested in-and worried about- the large bandages running all the way up Jane’s arms.
“What the hell happened to your arms?!” Nehvna demanded, nearly screaming as she saw how far they went up her arms, to the elbow.
“Oh nothing to worry about it” Jane said with a nervous smile, Nehvna was always kicking off about every little scrape or bruise so the bandages winding all the way up her arms would not put her in a good mood, and that mood would be ruined even more when she saw what was underneath the bandages.
“That is some serious bandages Jane, what do you mean there is nothing to worry about?!” she screeched again before grabbing Jane by the hand and dragging her upstairs.
“Ow, that hurts you know” Jane said, being yanked upstairs.

Once upstairs Nevhna sat Jane down on a stool-despite her protests- and was unwrapping the bandages that Silverfang had tied up, Jane took a breath and braced herself for the bomb-shell that was going to drop when Nevhna saw the uncovered state of her arms. Nevhna-for her part- was very restrained, by her standards anyway, when she had finished unwrapping. She simply stared wide-eyed at the cuts for a few seconds before muttering to herself and turning to a box labelled ‘Jane’s Box’. Something that Eliot had been keeping around since she often came-or was brought by Silver- sporting a myriad of wounds. She picked out some disinfectant and poured it onto a cotton bud, then began to dap at the cut, ignoring Jane’s sharp intake of breath that signalled it was hurting.

“First I need to get you some clothes while you get a shower” She told Jane and for the first time Jane looked down and found out that she was in her bra and panties, both where stained in blood. She then blushed as she realized that Silverfang must have saw her since he took off that destroyed wreck of a shirt, she looked very embarrassed and tried to cover it up by speaking in a nonchalant manner, in an attempt to appear indifferent about her state of dress.
“I have been a bit preoccupied to notice my clothing” she told Nehvna, the blood has started to dry around her back and it was not doing anything for her beauty. She thought she had done a very good tone, and Nehvna must have believed her as well, or decided not to press the point, because she did not bring it up.
“Into the shower with you, I’ll pick something out” she told Jane, walking into the bathroom and fiddling with the shower before getting it to a good temperature.
“I’m showering already, you are so pushy sometimes Nevy” she said as the water coming off her turned red with the blood while brown tried to make an appearance, it had been a long time since she last had a shower and the events of tonight just made her even dirtier than she was before.

She let the water run on her body for a while before turning to the shampoo. She reached out for the bottle and squeezed some onto her hand before working it into her hair and washing it off, the soap came off the same red-with-brown as the water had, causing her to sigh. “Dam I’m such a mess” she complained to herself as she lathered up the soap again and worked it into her hair before washing it out again, the soap coming away more brown than red this time which was a good sign that the blood was getting washed from her hair. It took her a while to actually get some semblance of cleanliness due to her lack of being able to have a shower at her own house, her father didn’t like her having any sort of luxuries that might make her life in the slightest bit easier. She repeated the lathering a few more times, cleaning her back in the process, until the water returned to its natural colour, she then grabbed the conditioner from the shelf and began to rub it into her mass of now pink hair.

When she was finished Jane turned the shower off and stepped out, rubbing herself dry with a towel before wrapping one round all the hair she could manage to fit in it. It was a good feeling to be clean and she did not get the feeling very often so every time she did she cherished it because it would be a long time before she got another chance. Jane then headed into the bedroom to check what Nehvna was pulling out of the wardrobe.

“You are one serious mess” Nehvna said as she took off Jane’s towel and began to blow dry her hair, Nehvna was not bothered in the slightest by the total lack of clothes that Jane was currently showing since she had been around her and other naked women a lot so she was comfortable with female nakedness. “Come here, your arms need bandaging again” She told Jane, who sat down on a stool-the same stool she had sat down on before- and waited patiently while Nehvna rubbed a cream into both cuts, and all the way up her arm before wrapping the entire length up in bandage once again. When it came to knowing Jane, everyone had a certain amount of skill in First-aid, it was required when you lived around a girl such as her.

After that was done, Nehvna ran a comb though Jane’s hair as she dried it, making sure that each part was properly dried and combed before moving onto the next part and working on that. “You could definatly be a hair dresser or something to that extent you know” Jane told Nehvna who blushed at the complement.
“I am not that good Jane” She told her, it was not true since Nehvna was amazing with all things hair, Jane’s hair was originally brown but it was Nehvna who dyed the whole length of it pink.
It was extremely hard work considering how much there was but Nehvna managed to do it perfectly.
“You are better than good Nehvna, you are amazing” she said as Nehvna finished combing though Jane’s hair and switched the blow dryer off, she then picked up two sets of clothes from the bed and held them up so that Jane could see them, Jane picked the plainer set of clothes-a simple t-shirt and jeans- and put them on. Nehvna preferred the brighter, flashier style of clothes and so she always wore a long dress that complimented her tall frame. After Jane had finished putting the new clothes on, being careful of her wrist, and-with the help of Nehvna- gotten all her hair out of the back of her t-shirt she and Nehvna headed down the stairs, Jane’s layered mass of hair swaying slightly as she walked.

4. Back at Jane’s house, her father-being rather drunk and therefore feeling the urge to flaunt his superiority on some one that did not have the ability to fight back against him- of which there were few, luckily for him one of them few was locked in a room upstairs- had gone up to Jane’s room and discovered that she had vanished from her bed, a feat that would be impossible on her on in the state she was currently in, he had left her in bad shape but the state she had left herself in was even worse, Mark took enjoyment in the fact that he had such dominance over his daughter’s life. It made him feel important, and strong. Shadow however needed no illusions about his strength, he was a very powerful Familiar, and had kept Mark out of a lot of trouble, some that Mark knew about, other bits he was completely oblivious about. Shadow sniffed around the room a few times as he was trying to pin down a particular smell and had obviously succeeded since he turned back to Mark with a grim look, knowing the eruption of anger that was going to come as soon as he revealed what he knew. A few seconds of deliberation made Shadow decide that he was not going to tell what he knew, rather keep it for himself. It was time after all. “I can’t detect anything around this room, she must not have been in that bad of a condition, either that or she has fallen though a wormhole and ceased to exist” he said casually, but Mark still growled.

“There is no way someone can leave that puddle-“ he angrily gestured to the blood-soaked bed, a mess that he would make Jane clean up, when she was brought back from wherever she was “ and then get up and walk out. Someone must have helped her” He stated obviously, angrily pacing the room. Shadow sighed, there was something not right about lying to Mark like this, it was like killing a wounded puppy.
“Well you can always try the Library, she seems to frequent that place a lot. Failing that, I don’t really know for certain where she could be, there are a lot of places around for her to be. She could even be hiding in one of the houses” He explained, sighing slightly as he spun such a tale that even someone that was not a complete idiot like Mark was might believe him. Mark grumbled for a bit about not having a definite address then headed downstairs to get his coat and shoes. His mind was filled will all the nasty things he would do when he finally got his ungrateful daughter back. He thought them just punishment for running away rather than spiteful-and pointless- violence. Even Shadow was getting bored of it, and he loved to fight things. But what Mark did to Jane was not fighting, and as such, he was glad that the time had finally come. It had taken a while, but it was here, at last, and was well worth the wait.

Shadow nodded as Mark headed out of the door and down the road, waking at a pace that was brisk but not hurried. Shadow then left though the back door and headed down the opposite road, he knew exactly where he was going and his pace was casual. He arrived when he wanted to arrive, even if he did not want to arrive at that time he changed the time he wanted to arrive to the time he had arrived. It was a principle thing, and he wouldn’t let anyone change it, not even Mark, whose hold over Shadow was a lot lesser than what he thought it was, as was his brain, and his remaining life span. Shadow couldn’t help smiling as he walked down the road, he was about to do all the things he enjoyed, all in one day. It was a good day. But then, all days when he got to break into somewhere, beat people up, kidnap someone, break stuff and even bring much needed pain and subsequent death to the obnoxious, nasty dislikeable man he had been forced to spent a good deal of time with was a good day. Little could ruin this day. Except the weather, Shadow’s smile disappeared in a grumble and he wished it would hurry up, and warm up, all this cold was not something he liked, but then he cheered himself up again by realizing he didn’t have to put up with it for much longer. He didn’t have to put up with much more here for much longer. Shadow’s smile returned as he continued down the street. Today was going to be the best of days.

5. Jane sniffed the air as she walked down the stairs, Eliot had obviously gone to the kitchen and was adding the finishing touches to his cooking as it made the air smell rather nice, this does not mean the actual food was nice however, simply that it smelt good. “What you got cooking Eliot?” Nehvna asked as she walked into the Kitchen, leaving Jane to go to the front room where she quickly snuggled up against Silverfang, feeling very close to him now. She was still a bit embarrassed but tried not to make it show.
“Food. It will be done soon” Eliot said, he never gave a definite answer of what he was cooking before it was done.
“Well I hope you are not going to try that puke flavoured risotto again.” Nehvna joked as she got out a collection of glasses and began filling them up with different drinks.
“Don’t worry about that, I am making meat this time” he said, throwing a few more herbs in to the pan.

“Ahhhh, it has been a rough today” Jane said, not caring about proper speech as she snuggled into Silverfang who starred at her.
“Rough today? I think you need speaking lessons” Silverfang joked, earning him a punch in the arm from Jane.
“I am allowed to have crappy speaking.” She told him as Eliot came into the room with a massive plate piled high with nose-caressing meat.
“Grubs up” he said setting the large plate down and putting some smaller plates next to it.
Everyone attacked the pile of meat and piled their plates high with it before sitting back, despite the large amount everyone had taken there was still a fair bit left. Jane bit into one of the chicken pieces and the flavour exploded in her mouth, the herbs went perfectly with the meat and made the whole thing beautiful.

“This is great Eliot, you really can cook well sometimes cant you?” Jane announced loudly, backed by agreements from everyone else.
“Well I just got lucky that’s all. I threw a load of leftover meat into a pot and chucked in a ton of herbs. The result was not too bad” he said with a big head, popping a piece of beef into his mouth before there was a knock at the door.
“Who are we missing?” Eliot asked himself, heading to the door and opening it. As he opened it, however, he was greeted by the sight of a fist, which quickly connected with Eliot’s face, knocking him back from the door and sprawling him out on the carpet. His tattered, pitch black overcoat swaying slightly in the breeze and his one eye-the other had a large scar over it, and the eyelid was shut- scanned the room, taking in each person in it calmly. Shadow then shut the door as if he had just entered a room full of friends rather than a room full of people trying to cause him serious harm.
“Hello” He said casually actually greeting the room like he wasn’t about to fight half the room’s inhabitants, as Silverfang growled, he had gotten up from his seat and his fists where clenched, ready to fight. Nehvna, Jane and Beth had all gotten off the couch and backed against the wall, as if it would do anything when Shadow took out the Familiars and walked over as he obviously would.

Silverfang had sprouted fur and his fingers grew into claws, his teeth grew longer and sharper, till they resembled a set of wolf teeth rather than human teeth. “Sit down, pup, I have just come for Jane, you don’t need to get involved” He told Silver, obviously highly confident of his skills and the inevitable victory he would have if Silver tried to fight him. However, before Silverfang could so much as growl, an arrow penetrated Shadow’s shoulder and forced him back a step, Shadow himself let out a grunt of pain as Silverfang moved in to take advantage of the long-shafted distraction. However, Shadow was not going to let himself get beaten by some gutter Familiars, and so he drove his fist into Silver’s gut, knocking the air out of him. Next, Shadow swung a vicious hook to Silver’s jaw which, combine with his earlier hit, was enough to know the Wolf-Familiar to the floor.

He then turned to see who had shot an arrow at him as a second arrow-obviously waiting for a clear shot- grazed his cheek. Avrion hastily drew a third arrow but Shadow had already closed the gap, delivering a punch into her side and feeling several ribs crack under the impact. Avrion’s face contorted in pain as she collapsed, her bow clattering to the ground, now useless. With both Familiars out of action Shadow sighed and gripped the arrow shaft, he then pulled it out with something that was a mix between a growl and a cry of pain as he realized the arrow was barbed and had caused more damage coming out than going in.

“Dam, that is sore” he muttered casually, not hurrying since the other two that could do anything against him where on the floor in rather large amounts of pain. He rolled his shoulder a few times and wiped away the blood before turning on the three girls. Nehvna was looking at Avrion with a look of concern and fear, but she couldn’t move with Shadow in front of her. Beth seemed distracted cursing silently for some reason but Shadow didn’t bother finding out what. She also seemed to have a small look of fear, as if unsure what Shadow was going to do now, but not nearly as much as Nehvna, who seemed on the verge of tears. Jane, in contrast to her two sisters, was glaring at Shadow determinedly, as if she could stop his advance with a glare.
“Well, you’re coming with me now Jane” Shadow said, equally as casual as he had been since entering the house and fighting the two Familiars.
“Like hell I am” she growled, swinging a rather inexperienced punch at Shadow who, a lot more experienced that Jane, dropped his shoulder and rammed into Jane’s stomach, knocking the wind out of her, then wrapping an arm around her waist and picking her up. He then headed to the door, as if the house was his and he was just now leaving.



6. Jane thrashed, kicking and punching and screaming as Shadow carried her down the road, Shadow however, seemed rather bored at the fact that she was still resisting. After several minutes he decided to say something about it, not that what he said was very nice, but then he had just kidnapped her from the house and carried her over his shoulder like a package down the road-the few cars that passed ignored him, which he was grateful for- and that was not very nice, so he was not going to start being nice now.
“Please stop them butterfly farts you call punches, it’s getting slightly annoying now.” He said, huffing at the effort it required to kidnap one girl. Not that it was a very tactful kidnapping, but then he was not a very tactful person. As he walked down the pavement-Jane did not give up her punches despite how ineffective they where- he saw someone, stood in the middle of the pavement, clearly trying waiting for Shadow. The most peculiar thing was that he had a sword in his hand, but from this distance he could not make much of the sword’s details out. He huffed again, wondering who this person was, he seemed serious however, so he dropped Jane-she let out a short scream before she hit the pavement and was knocked breathless- and dropped down next to her.

“Don’t move, I got to deal with this” he said, clipping some pitch black handcuffs, the same the same colour as his coat, that he had pulled from under his coat, or at least that is what Jane saw from her vantage point. He then stood up and faced the man, who was closer now, and walking towards him slowly. From this distance Shadow could make out the blade was sheathed, the man had not drawn it yet, which was odd. With a sigh this time rather than a huff, he drew his own sword, its blade so black it seemed to steal light from the surroundings, and it made his coat seem a much lighter colour in comparison.

The man seemed rather powerful, and his stance showed that he was obviously experienced with the blade despite not drawing it yet, so Shadow adopted his Familiar Form, the tattered overcoat he wore grew darker, till it matched his sword in contrast, and the frayed edges of it turned into a pristine, fully buttoned version of itself. His face changed as well, the area where his eye was scared and shut turned skeletal, which made his calm look all the more menacing.
“Such hassle” he muttered to himself, striding towards the man who seemed completely unfazed by the sudden change and-from what he could see- was wearing a fox mask.

Beth slammed the floor in anger, Nehvna was trying to take care of Avrion, and had diagnosed that Shadow had broken three ribs with his punch.
“He didn’t even switch, Two Familiar in their forms, and he took them both out while still in his Human form.” She growled, slapping Silverfang again to get him to wake up, a method a lot less refined than what Nehvna would have done, but then Beth was a lot less refined than Nehvna when it came to medical stuff. Silverfang woke up with a groan and stood up, stumbling for the door.
“Got….to save…Jane” he said, opening the door and stumbling out of it, despite Nehvna’s protests-and Beth’s, but less enthusiastically- which caused Beth to simply sigh and move on, slapping Eliot now rather than Silverfang.

Silverfang stumbled down the road, clutching his side from the pain, his jaw also hurt, but he would have looked rather stupid clutching his jaw and Silver didn’t want to look any more stupid. He already did that enough as it was. Silver stumbled down the road, holding onto a garden wall at one point and taking a breather for several seconds, he hadn’t been in this much pain for a while, that Shadow really packed a punch, he saw now what Jane meant by he couldn’t get past her father’s Familiar.

After several minutes of stumbling and leaning on wall to keep himself standing he reached Jane, who was lying in the middle of the road, he quickened his pace from amble to quick stumble, gritting his teeth at the increase in pain. He arrived and got down on his knees next to her. She was shivering from the cold and so he took off his jacket and wrapped around her, hoping to warm her up slightly. With that done, he scouted the surrounding area and found a few, rather interesting things. Half an immensely black blade-so black it made darkness seem light- was laying on the ground, scrap marks leading up to it showed that it had landed at an angle, and at some speed as well. Oddly, there was no blood around, but then Jane’s whole body shivered quite violently, and Silverfang was beginning to feel the bite of winter as well, so he put the questions to the back of his mind and picked Jane up, immediately putting him down again as his side roared in pain.

He had ignored it before but it had now come back with a vengeance. He clutched it and cursed a few times, then looked down at Jane again. There were some shards scattered around Jane, black as the blade shard but in many, finer pieces. However, Jane herself was more important at the moment. She must have been frozen, the clothing she was wearing was thin enough, made for comfort not warmth, and even with Silver’s coat it was cold enough out to cut though that will little effort, making Silverfang worried about Jane’s health.

He growled in vexation, and he was so fixated on Jane and her predicament that he did not notice the man with the Fox mask approach until the man spoke.
“Do you need a hand?” He asked, causing Silverfang to jump, let out a strangled yelp of surprise and then take a sharp intake of breath as pain ran though his body again. The Fox-mask hid the man’s features and his emotions, but that didn’t stop Silverfang glaring suspiciously. Masked people didn’t simply appear next to a fur lined man standing in front of an unconscious girl and offer to help without so much as a question of the situation.

Things like that just did not happen; the man’s sudden arrival was too precise to be Happenstance, or even coincidence. It had to be planned. The man must have read Silverfang’s wariness as he offered an explanation.
“I came here at the request of his Sister, it was quite a rush, but I managed to get here on time, however, I could not see to the girl as I had to make sure Shadow was properly gone, and not just hiding somewhere close by” He explained, his voice seemed odd, as if the mask had a voice-box in it that changed the tone of his voice. However odd that was and the phrase ‘his sister’ was also rather odd, but Silverfang was more interested with the fact that the fox-mask man had fought Shadow.
“You fought Shadow? How, he is like, seriously strong” Silver said in disbelief, trying to save his own ego.
“Yes, he is quite a monster in strength, but there is always a bigger fish” the Fox masked man told Silver, and though the voice-box distorted it slightly, the tone sounded as casual as when Shadow had broken into the house. “Now, we should see to that side of yours” he said, pulling his scabbard out of its resting place in his belt. For some reason, Silverfang knew he wasn’t going to try anything with the sword, and so didn’t move to stop him. The man then tapped the handle against Silver’s side and he suddenly felt an indescribable feeling. After a few seconds he was left with a mild case of pins-and-needles but his side felt as if Shadow caused a large amount of pain there barely half an hour previously, his jaw felt a lot better as well.
“Err, thank….” Silver started, but the fox-masked man was no longer there, Silver frowned but then realized that Jane was shivering, and so picked her up and headed back to the house at a much greater speed than he had headed out at.


7: For the second time in so many hours Jane found herself resting in bed, the key difference this time was that everyone was in the room rather than just Silverfang, and everyone looked worried. Also, Beth’s beautiful, perfectly curvy-bodied Familiar Satyr was also there, looking on with a slightly worried look. Avrion looked as if she was a bit doped, and so when she opened her eyes the first thing she asked was if Avrion was feeling alright.
“Im fine, Shadow broke a few ribs, but Satyr managed to fix me up.” Avrion replied rather slowly, but her smile never faded. Jane nodded and then turned to Silverfang, who seemed the most relieved that she had woken up.
“Thank you for finding me Silver” Jane said, blushing slightly as she looked at him. His fur had retracted and his face-and the rest of his body- was now smooth. “I’m sure your all curious as to what happened, so gather round, and I will recite it the best I can” Jane said, everyone then moved around, sitting on the bed at different angles so they where in a semi-circle around Jane, who cleared her throat and began.
“As Shadow was carrying me down the road, a guy stood in the way, he was an odd sort of guy, with a strange, fox mask on” She told them before Silverfang piped up.
“I met him, he seemed to be using a voice box to hide his real voice for some reason, and his sword thing was really odd. He tapped my side with the handle and the pain just vanished, I tried to thank him but he had vanished as quickly as the pain did” Silverfang told everyone, before nodding towards Jane, signalling her to continue.
“He was definitely an odd guy. He even made Shadow go into his Familiar form just by standing there with this sheathed sword. Anyway, Shadow dropped me from his shoulder-which really hurt by the way- and then clipped these things on my wrists, and as soon as they locked, my arms went dead. All the feeling vanished in that moment and they flopped uselessly. I think I’ll call them the Arm-Deadeners” Jane mused, going off on a tangent before Beth coughed, causing Jane to snap back, if slightly slowly.

“What? Ohh yes, Shadow. Anyway, after those Arm-Deadeners got clipped on, Shadow moved towards the Fox-mask guy and I pulled my legs up and rolled to try and get a better vantage point of the battle. However, in mid-roll I heard this clang, but I couldn’t stop so I finished the roll before looking up. When I did, Shadow’s sword had been severed and he had a narrow, but long opening caused by a sword on his coat. The odd thing was that despite the wound underneath the coat there was no blood, and the fox guy’s sword was still sheathed. Shadow then backed up and fell into the shadow he was casting on the ground, and as he did that the Arm-Deadeners felt..weird, I can’t describe it, but the feeling was really odd. Then I collapsed, I think the Arm-Deadeners did it. That is about it really” Jane finished. Beth-and pretty much anyone who wasn’t Satyr- seemed rather enthralled by the story, as if they were getting into it.

Satyr, however, seemed thinking-as usual, she was always the smartest person of the group, and always the thinker- about the story.
“To be able to stand toe to toe with Shadow you would need a Powerful Familiar at the very least, but from Jane’s story the man didn’t have a Familiar with him, just a sword that remained sheathed for the parts Jane saw. And the time-frame for drawing his sword, severing Shadow’s and delivering a blow to his chest, then replacing the sword is not big, only a few seconds at most. Combine that with what seems like a blood-drinking sword and I can think of only one person that would do that. The only man to ever win the Master and Familiar Fighting Championships without even summoning a Familiar and owner of Balance of Twilight, easily the most powerful Familiar in the world. Sean Woodhouse.” Satyr said, speaking her thoughts to the group.

“But why the hell would he be around here? Isn’t he busy being rich and famous?” Silverfang asked, the town they were in was far away from any kind of famous place so it was not like he was simply going slightly out of his way.
“Why don’t we ask him?” Jane said to everyone, smiling at them as if she had not just woken up from being dragged down the road by a far-to-calm familiar for what he was doing then saved by one of the most famous people on the planet, a man with a name no one would not immediately recognize. However, with the looks she was getting Jane quickly continued. “I mean, he has to still be in the area right? So we could contact him” She tried to explain, but Satyr shook her head.
“No, there are only a few Teleporting tricks, but most of them have quite a long range. Shadow’s shadow trick is known as one of the shorter ones, and even that has a maximum range of 40 miles” Satyr told Jane. Silverfang snapped his fingers as if he had just remembered something.
“The Fox-mask man said that he had come at the request of ‘his Sister’ not ‘my Sister’ which means it was someone else’s Sister that had called him here, to this exactly spot, at this exact time to rescue Jane.” Silverfang told everyone.
“Going off the assumption that the man is Sean Woodhouse-“Satyr started, but Silverfang stopped her.
“No, I don’t think it is Sean. For one, he has a reputation for completely lacking any amount of seriousness despite the situation, and an obsession with making as many people know that it is him doing the thing in question and not someone else. I don’t think Sean would have worn a mask, or kept such a level head. You know, I would not be surprised if the fox-masked man was Balance, he had the build for it, and from what I have heard he had the skill as well” Silverfang told Satyr, putting his point across. Satyr looked vexed at being interrupted but took a breath to start again; however before she even got anything out Eliot spoke out.
“Still does not explain why he is here, he is meant to be somewhere else, doing famous things” this caused Satyr to look really rather annoyed. Jane picked up on this mood and moved to get out of the bed.
“Well while you are doing the smart stuff I am hungry” She announced. Silverfang-also picking up on Satyr’s vexation, and decided that-being one of the reasons- he would remove himself as well.
“There is some meat left in the kitchen” he said, helping Jane out of the bed and following her downstairs.

When they reached the kitchen Silverfang reached out to the microwave and opened it, a plate of meat was sat in the middle and so he took it out and handing it to Jane, who pouted.
“I can take food out of the microwave you know” she snapped, putting her fists on her hips. Silverfang hated it when girls did that, it made them seem scary.
“I was just trying to help” he told Jane with a half cheeky, half loving smile, holding the plate of meat out for her. Jane laughed and took the plate.
“I know, but I’m stressed, with good reason. Sorry I snapped.” She apologized.
“Don’t worry about it, if I was in your shoes I’d be stressed as well. And my snapping hurts a lot more, sharp teeth and all” Silver said, doing what he did best and making a joke to ease the tension that was building up. His ploy worked, and he was rewarded by the soft giggle from Jane.

She and Silverfang stood in the kitchen for the next minute, eat meat and complaining about how it was going to give them bad wind the next day. Then Beth and Satyr came down the stairs and headed straight for the coat rack, pulling on their shoes and coats rather quickly and heading for the door.
“We are going out, we won’t be long, just need to pick something up” She said before exiting the house without another word.
“Err, I feel like I missed something” Jane said, Silverfang-who had taken a piece of meat from Jane’s plate and was now chewing it-nodded in agreement. Fortunately, Eliot and the two remaining girls came down the stairs at a slower rate. They saw the bemused looks on Silverfang and Jane’s faces and decided to explain.
“Satyr and Beth started to talk about a book when you left; we quickly got left begin in the dust. I have no idea where they are going, only that they won’t be long” Eliot explained as best he could, not that it was much of an explanation. But then, not many people could explain the winding, Labyrinth-like train of thought that Beth and Satyr seemed to follow nearly every day. Jane simply shrugged and returned to get plate of meat.
“Well, if they are not going to be long then maybe we should do what we were planning on doing in the first place.” Silverfang suggested, but Avrion yawned, quickly followed by Nehvna, then everyone else caught up in the infectious wave that yawning always brought. It was odd how one yawn could make a whole room yawn, but then-Jane thought abstractly- it was like a smile, if you smiled then chances where someone else would start smiling, and that would make another person smile. She liked to share her smile with as many people as she could when her father let her out, which was not often, and nearly all the situations that he dragged her to where no places for smiles, most where a place for the complete opposite of smiling, which crashed Jane’s happy train of thought. Avrion brought Jane back to reality by speaking to the group, which was a nice distraction.
“I’m tired, I’m going to catch some Zs while they are out, I’ll come back down later” She told everyone, Nehvna nodded and sleepily followed her Familiar up the stairs.
“Fair enough, just don’t break anything” Eliot told them with a playful smile.

8: Satyr looked at Beth as they walked down the road. She couldn’t believe that, after all this waiting, it was finally time. The shackles would be thrown off and they would ascend, away from here, something Satyr had been waiting to do for quite a while now.
“It is glorious that it is finally time, don’t you think?” Satyr asked Beth, who shook her head.
“It is simply the first step on a long road, Satyr; plenty of work is required before we can bear fruit” Beth replied, Satyr sighed and nodded.
“I know, I know. But still, we are setting out on the long road after such a time of waiting, there is just something about that start that..just..mmm” Satyr ended with a noise, rather than a word since she didn’t have a word for it.
“That is true dear, and I am rather ecstatic, but it is not like anything we have faced before. Three walls-that we know of-and there might be more. The first has already been broken, and the second as a plan in place, but the third…” Beth trailed off, staring at the sky. After a while she shook her head. “But, we are at the start, and that is something. Better than what was before” She finished. Satyr nodded in agreement. The two girls then began to speak about more mundane things, like the weather and how much they liked Eliot’s newest Kitchen experiment, until they arrived at a rather large house. It stood out from all the others with its ornately carved statues of a woman wearing a dress made from leaves and holding a globe that, on further inspection, looked very similar to the Earth. The way the statue’s eyes where carved made it seem as if the holder owned, or had created the orb. Satyr had seen it a few times, and knew what it represented, but little other people did. The rest of the house was made from equally large- both in length and width- quarry stones that looked distinctively fresher than the rest of the street, which made it stand out from the rest of the red-brick houses even more. There was a feeling that this house had not existed for very long, or at least not as long as the other houses on the street.
“Never could blend in, could he?” Satyr asked rhetorically as they opened the gate and walked up to the door, pushing it open without so much as a knock.

The Inside of the house was devoid of practically everything, there were no tables, or clocks, or chandeliers that someone would have expected, seeing the outside. There was not even any boxes that would explain the bareness, it was simply an empty hallway, stretching on until it reached a set of stairs, the stairs then went up to another bare hallway, this one dotted with several, unpainted doors. Beth had seen it before, it was obvious considering the owners favourite pass-time. As she walked though the hallway, her footfalls light and hard to hear, she heard a thudding sound, as if something very heavy was moving on the second floor. She smiled and looked up as a bare-chested mountain of a man-easily thirty stone and topping six and a half foot- his muscles where so large that his bare-chested appearance was justified, since there was no shirt or jacket he could wear without his monstrous girth ripping it in half. His muscles where mainly around the top half of his body, but his leg muscles where well developed as well, if not to a clothes-ripping extent. To most people, the man would be terrifying to an extent that they would probably run and hide from him. Beth, however, had grown used to the bulk of the man and was not bothered by it, much. There was still a wariness of him, but it was suppressed.

“Hello Glee, is Niall in?” She asked, Satyr stayed close to Beth’s side, she was considerably more wary of Glee, as she was to everyone or everything that could crush her skull with a single hand and little effort.
“It’s Mr. Glee, not just Glee. And yes, he is in, what do you want with him?” Mr. Glee asked.
“I want a book” She replied, obviously not planning on giving much-if any-more than that.
“Fine, follow me” Mr. Glee said with a sigh. Beth and Satyr headed up the stairs and followed Mr. Glee along the hallway and into a room, as bare as the rest. Niall was sat on the floor with two women who were standing, the man was tall, six foot easily, and has well toned muscles, or though they were nowhere near the size of Mr. Glee’s. Beth explained it to Satyr the first time she asked as concentrated strength, the muscles could exert as much strength as Mr. Glee’s, but where a lot smaller. Niall wore a t-shirt and had hair that reached the middle of his back which was the opposite of Mr. Glee’s bald, bare-chested look.


The two standing women were vastly different to Mr. Glee and Niall, one of them had blonde hair that was in two ponytails at either side of her head and each tail was platted, however both tails where so long that the sprawled down to the bottom of the girl’s back. The dress that the girl with the extremely long hair was wearing was one of amazing detail, and Beth couldn’t help smiling as she saw it.

The long haired girl had a ribbon wrapped around her neck and the top part of her chest was bare, it also had very short arms, not even coming down to her elbows before cutting off with a frilly pattern. The top of her breasts had a frilly fabric look to it but this just made the dress all the better. It then carried on down to the stomach area where it was plain and fitted tightly to her, it looked to be offering support for the rest of the dress by the way it hugged her. The actual light brown dress started around her waist and the sides had the same light brown fabric that with overlapping layers that the rest of the dress was made out of but the front seemed to be a separate part of the dress and was made of silk rather the taffeta the rest of the dress was made out of. Roughly ten tiers of this pink silk ran down her waist part of the dress, each tier getting wider until it reached the floor. The dress was so long it covered her feet but from the sound she made when the girl came in she was probably wearing some sort of flat shoes with the small but wide heel on them. Such work must have gone into the making of that dress that Beth wondered how much it would have cost. It looked very expensive, the extensive use of silk alone would have made the dress expensive, but the rest of the material, the design and the needlework that was required would make the dress something with such a large price tag that most people could not even think to afford it. Beth smiled, she had seen this girl before, her name was Chiyo, and she had lived in this house with Niall since it was built, but what she never knew was why.


The second girl however was significantly taller that Chiyo, possibly a foot taller, and her hair was a lot shorter as well, while Chiyo’s hair ran down her back and stopped at the edge of her spine the girls hair barely reached her shoulders.

The clothing she was wearing was not as flashy as Chiyo’s dress but it was still rather grand. The headdress she wore was a dark black and it, like the rest of her uniform, seemed to mesmerize the observer with the sheer depth of the darkness. She had a frilly collar that ran from her chin to her collarbone. The bare opening was a lot smaller than Chiyo’s dress as it was only a short a small portion of the chest area as opposed to Chiyo’s completely naked upper chest area. The opening was decorated in a frilly pattern and just below it was the same look as Chiyo’s dress, a crinkly look to the uniform made it look good but it did not seem to offer much support, that came from the two dozen laces that kept a corset like thing closed. The arm sleeves where plain and short, cutting off just above the elbow, but they ended in the same frilly pattern the chest opening was made from. She was also wearing frilly cuffs tied with a single lace to keep them from falling off, one of the laces was pointing outwards but the other one was pointing inwards. She had a pure white apron over the bottom half of her uniform that ended in the same frilly pattern that seemed to be predominant in the rest of the uniform.

“Well now, I have seen you wear some fancy things before, Lady Chiyo, but that one has to be the most fancy” Beth told Chiyo, the use of the honorific made Mr. Glee rather annoyed.
“So you get hers perfectly good on the first try, but you miss out mine completely?” Mr. Glee looked like he was going to saw more, and it looked like it was going to be rather unfriendly as well, but the woman in the maid’s uniform looked over and spoke softly.
“Do not insult my Mistress, Mr. Glee” She told him, Mr. Glee looked as wary of the maid as Beth did of him, which was slightly confusing for Beth. She had not seen him wary of anything.
“Sorry, Lilly, I just was annoyed” he said, straightening himself up as much as a person of his size could. Niall seemed to take advantage of the lull and speak, in a very strong, but not bass-deep, voice.
“Beth, what brings you here?” He asked, it seemed to have settled the situation somewhat, but there was still a tense atmosphere.
“I need a book. A very specific book. It is time” She told him, and Niall needed no more. Mr. Glee looked more alert than he had before and even Lilly seemed to have a rather pleased look on her face. The only one that was confused was Chiyo, but she didn’t let anyone see it, because she didn’t like someone knowing that she didn’t know something.
“Finally. Been a while, eh?” Niall asked, getting up and heading for the door. “Sorry Lady Chiyo, this is immensely important, I will assist you further when I am finished with this” he apologized, before exiting the room, followed closely by Beth and Satyr, leaving Mr. Glee to explain.
“It is part of his religion, the one they have been waiting for is finally here, and now they must prepare against the ones that would not want her to reach her full potential. It’s all very complicated, and I stay out of it as much as I can, so that is really all I know” Mr. Glee explained, to the best of his knowledge at least.
“I never knew Niall was religious, he doesn’t seem the type” Chiyo said, before shrugging. “Well then, Lilly and I shall retire to my room until Niall returns. Thank you for the explanation Mr. Glee” Chiyo said, before heading to the door herself, Lilly followed with an odd smile, the same smile that a child has on Christmas when he knows presents wait for him downstairs.

Mr. Glee sat in the room for a few more minutes, not really sure what to do until Beth and Satyr returned, Satyr had a large book under her arm and Niall seemed rather more hyped than he had been for a long time, it was rather odd to see Niall being so…cheery.
“Goodbye Niall, I will see you later” Beth told him, waving and heading down the stairs.
“Goodbye, Beth.” He replied, smiling and then heading back to Chiyo’s room to continue their rather interesting discussion.

9. When the girls got back to the house Eliot was playing cushion to Avrion and Nehvna, it was so cute to see him being a cushion but it was ruined a second later by Beth and Satyr barging though the door, jolting the two girls awake.

“I’m up” Nehvna squeaked as she sat up, Beth and Satyr went upstairs without saying anything to anyone and ignored all the curious looks. However, everybody followed the two up the stairs after only a few seconds of debating. But when they arrived at the bedroom that had been used to keep Jane’s unconscious form-twice- in there was nothing understandable to be nosey at when, Satyr was sat reading the book and Beth was looking at her, the book seemed to have a lot of names followed by strange symbols that Jane had never seen, Satyr did not seem to pay them any mind so Jane simply ignored them, passing them off as unimportant. Satyr flicked though the book for a few minutes before pointing to one of the names, Jane did not see it before the book was passed to Beth.

It was at this point that Jane noticed a paint pot next to Beth, a few seconds where spent wondering what she was going to do with it or even where she got it from before she took the brush out and began painting the symbols Jane saw on the book. When Beth had finished painting the last symbol they glowed with a bright light before a holographic woman appeared, but it was a fuzzy quality and Jane couldn’t make out any details other than she was a woman.

Satyr however didn’t seem to need any detail and said something in a rather confusing tongue that Jane had never heard of. The woman nodded and the symbols stopped glowing, then the woman disappeared.
“You see? Nothing to worry about” Satyr told Beth, Beth seemed rather on edge about the whole thing but relaxed when Satyr comforted her.
“I was worried that we would get the wrong one” she told Satyr before standing up and seeing the confused looks on everyone’s faces.
“We made a phone call” she said simply before heading past them. Jane and Silverfang looked at Eliot who simply shrugged.
“You expect me to know what she means?” he asked so they all followed Beth and Satyr down the stairs like a game of follow-the-leader. When Jane asked Beth what she meant Beth stared looking rather annoyed.
“You use phones to call people. That is why it is called a phone call” She said, annoying Jane.
“Fine, keep your secrets” Jane said in a huff, returning to Silverfang who had sat on the couch.
“Sorry about your party idea” she said, snuggling into Silverfang.
“Don’t worry about it, today has been much more exciting” He told Jane, relaxing so that he would be a more comfortable pillow.
“Yea, and much more painful” she said, looking at the bruise on his chin from her vantage point.
While Jane and Silverfang where snuggling Eliot had not given up on finding out what Satyr and Beth had been doing.

“Tell me who you where calling” He said, giving up on asking for the content.
“Rose, I assumed that since she was the one in use then she would be the one handing things around here” Satyr told Eliot, ignoring his gormless look.
“Rose? You mean Scarlet Rose? How can you just call her?” Eliot asked, throwing several questions at Satyr who was beginning to look annoyed.
“Yes I mean Scarlet Rose, and I can just call her because I got the phone book from Niall and that allows me to call any Familiar registered.” Satyr said to him, shedding light on what she had just done.

“So you are saying that with that book you can call any Familiar in the world?” He asked to which Satyr simply shook her head.
“No, only the ones registered, Familiars are registered by default but people can opt to unregister them so people can’t contact them, don’t ask why though.” She said before heading into the kitchen, an obvious sign that the convosation was over.

“This day keeps getting weirder.” Eliot said, scratching his head.
“Give it time, the best is yet to come” Beth told him before following Satyr and leaving Eliot with a befuddled look.

After a minute Eliot gave up and walked back into the front room, flopping down on one of the chairs. “What is with Satyr being so cryptic?” he asked, rhetorically but Jane answered all the same. “Because she has a secret and you know how she is with secrets”. Eliot was not expecting an answer so it took him a second to realize that Jane was talking to her.
“But she has never been so……secretive” Eliot told her, sighing heavily, Jane-for her part- simply shrugged.
“Satyr, and Beth, are extremely greedy for knowledge, they are the kind of people that would destroy half the world if they thought it would give them the secrets of the other half” Silverfang told Eliot like he did not already know.
“I know but that does not mean I am not annoyed about it” Eliot replied.

Jane looked at Eliot and Silverfang before smiling, she had no plans to return after what her father did to her. “So do you want to retry your night or do you think someone is going to interrupt it again?” she asked, the cheeky grin giving more weight to her words
“Well since we are expecting Satyr’s guest whenever I guess we should just wait and not try anything that is going to get interrupted in an hour or so” Eliot explained so Jane simply shrugged and snuggled into Silverfang again.

9 ½. Shadow’s face screwed up as his last wound was stitched up.
“I can’t believe you got beat” the man who was stitching him up said with a slight amused tone. “Watch it Doc or you will be your next patient” Shadow growled but this did not stop the man from chuckling slightly.
“I believe we have not given this man the attention he deserves” the doctor said, cleaning the blood off his hands and leaving for the door. He opened it and turned back to Shadow.
“I think you are going to need a better sword, or a new partner, before you go up against him again” the doctor told Shadow who smiled an evil smile.
“I was thinking both actually, and it has already been taken care of” his voice had taken on a dark undertone to it.
“So I am to expect an addition soon then?” The doctor asked to which Shadow nodded.
“Always good” the doctor said, leaving the room.

Shadow stood up and rubbed the large shoulder stitching before picking up his tattered coat. “Working for a runaway to chase down a legend. How far can I fall?” he asked himself before leaving the room. This place was a nice haven for the unwanted people of the universe, the only question ever asked around here was ‘how much will it cost’ and even that one was not really asked that much, questions around here tended to get you on one of the beds, or in the morgue. Shadow liked that about here. As he walked down the hallway he saw the man he was going to be working with now, he had that same feel, that same aura around him as the man that had cut his chest open, and that was one of the reasons Shadow was working with him, but not the only reason. He wanted revenge, and power, and the opportunity to kill people. With this man, he would have all that.
“Any leads?” Shadow asked, putting his coat on.
“One...you shall investigate” The man-Shadow was not sure it was really a man, just had the look of a man- growled. Shadow nodded and headed towards the main entrance, he wasn’t treated with the respect he wanted, but it was better than being with Mark. Here he wasn’t underestimated, and here he had freedom, to an extent.

10. Jane woke up. She didn’t know that she had fallen asleep but she must have done, you rarely wake up without falling to sleep. Upon waking up she saw a new person in the front room, the hole in the wall had been fixed over the course of her sleep which made her ask how long she had been snoozing.

“About an hour” Silverfang informed her before catching the questioning look. “That’s Scarlet, she came down about ten minutes ago and has been talking quietly with Beth and Satyr for the past nine and a half” he told her, glaring at them, it was so bumming to be left out of a secret convosation. Jane looked at the new girl for a few seconds before she remembered something.

“Where’s Nehvna and Avrion?” she asked Silverfang scratched his head.
“They are asleep somewhere, they told Eliot they were tired and so probably crashed on one of the beds, not sure which one though” Silverfang told Jane. She seemed satisfied with this answer as she laid back down on Silver’s lap.
“So this Scarlet? She isn’t Scarlet Rose is she, Sean’s Familiar?” Jane asked rather sceptically, not believing that she would come here. However, she did seem similar to that hazy woman Satyr and Beth where talking to.
“Probably, I don’t know. It was just ‘Scarlet’ so it could be Rose, or it could not be.” Silverfang replied so Jane simply shrugged and snuggled back into him.
“Wake me up when they let us in on the convosation.” Jane said with an underlying grumpiness before going back to sleep.

Jane was awoken half an hour after she went back to sleep.
“They are involving us now” Silverfang told her, Jane seemed groggy but interested.
“I have talked with Satyr and she tells me that you are the one Shadow tried to kidnap” Scarlet said, looking at Jane.
“Yea, he is my dad’s Familiar and so he tried to drag me back home” Jane explained, Scarlet simply shook her head.
“No, I’m afraid Shadow is no longer your father’s Familiar because your father no longer is. And he did not take you for your father, he took you for himself” Scarlet said in a neutral voice, but with a slight tone of pity.
“Ohh, well then he was my father’s Familiar” Jane reiterated, seemingly unperturbed by the announcement of her father’s death, she was a bit confused as to what she meant by ‘for himself’ but she didn’t really care to know the answer. “So, who offed the old….can’t find a good word for him really.” Jane admitted.
“Actually it was Shadow that killed him” Rose informed them casually, as if it was common knowledge that Familiars could kill their partners. The look of confusion on everyone but Beth and Satyr’s faces however, told Scarlet it was not.
“But I thought Familiars couldn’t be here without a partner, so killing their partner would immediately cause them to disappear” Jane said, stating everyone’s question.
“They can if they have a new master before killing the old one” Rose replied, this did nothing for the confusion however.
“Familiars can change partners?” Silverfang asked before Jane could.
“Ahh, I forgot that humans and their Familiars where largely ignorant of the way in which Familiars work” Rose said with a slight smile, she looked as if she was going to speak but was interrupted by Silverfang.
“You make it sound like humans aren’t the only people that have Familiars” He said sceptically, unsure if this Rose was trying to trick him or actually though that people where really stupid.
“You’re an idiot” Rose told him, unintentionally answering his question. “The Orion–Cygnus Arm holds a lot more than just this system. And then there is the rest of the galaxy, and then the other galaxies beyond that. The universe is a big place, so incomprehensibly large that only a half dozen beings have true omnipotence within it and you are trying to say that you are the only race to reside in it, humans really are some of the densest sentient beings around” Rose told everyone, sighing slightly with vexation, she then spoke quietly to Satyr for a while, ignoring everyone else, before leaving.

“He’s coming soon” Silverfang heard before Rose left. Silverfang then approached Beth and Satyr with a rather unamused look. “I have a few questions for you” He said with a strained voice, dragging both of them upstairs despite Satyr’s protests that she needed to wait downstairs.
“Right, stand there a second while I work out where to start” Silverfang told Beth as he dragged her into the guest room.
“Start on what?” Beth asked, genuinely confused for one of the first times.
“Probing you for answers” he replied, but before he could think of a question a voice came from the doorway.
“Is there a problem?” it asked in a rather calm voice that had an underlying tone of such seriousness it would make the most prude man’s voice seem silly.

“No thank you Eliot, we are fine” Beth said before noticing that the voice was completely different to Eliot’s, however when she looked over at the doorway there was no one there. Forgetting Silverfang for the moment-and he did not seem to mind being forgotten as he followed Beth-she walked over to the door and looked around. There was no one in the hallway or on the stairs. With her curiosity now at extreme levels Beth headed downstairs.
“Has anyone come in yet?” Beth asked with a confusing scanning of the room.
“Your Rose friend left only a minute ago, why would anyone be here yet?” Eliot said, answering her question with a question of his own and looking at Beth’s confused face with his own face of confusion.
“He has a point; it’s not like Rose is even where she is going yet. And people can’t just appear in houses with such a large group without anyone seeing them.” The calm, serious voice said, but the speaker was gone by the time Beth had looked around.
“This is not just me going nuts it is?” Beth asked but the looks on everyone else’s face indicated that was not the case.
“It wouldn’t be the first time you have gone nuts” The bodiless voice said, a hint of amusement entering its voice. This time the voice spoke, a look of recognition crossed over Beth’s face, quickly followed by a look of extreme annoyance.
“I’m going to feed you to some dogs, kill the dogs and then feed them to some bigger dogs. Then kill them dogs and burn their remains” Beth growled.
“Scary” The voice replied with no deviation from its normal tone. “You don’t mind if I draw on these walls do you?” It asked, and obviously didn’t wait for a reply because a second later a very realistic drawing of a Giraffe appeared on the walls. “Giraffe is such a strange name, but then so is Hippopotamus” the voice mused in a tone that was getting increasingly amused. Beth had already walked over to the cutlery drawer and was currently picking out a dozen knives.
“I like Dobermen, them massive dog-bear-things, the only problem is that things tend to get really hairy around them” the voice said, laughing at its own joke. Jane and Avrion also forgot the strange events for a second and laughed while the boys just stood with confused looked on their faces.

Beth then stormed over to the spot she was standing on and threw the dozen knives in the direction of the drawing. One of the knives thudded into something and the knife part turned red quickly, a sharp “Ow Adiunk” rang out, the second word was very different to any word anyone had ever heard before and the only one without a look of shock and confusion was Beth, who simply had an annoyed look on her face. “Et tu Bethee?” The voice asked before a thud rang out and the blade sharply moved up, the handle of the knife quickly turned red as well.

Beth waited for a second before walking over to the area where the knife was and looking down. “Now stop pissing about already” she said in a commanding sort of voice.
“Trust you to ruin my fun” The voice said as the knife flew up again and pulled itself out of whatever it was lodged in. The knife spun one and then it was devoid of any blood that stained it, however the blood was not on the carpet or the surrounding walls, it had simply vanished.
“You’re not seeing me though, I need to make my dramatic entrance, talking of which, it is pulling up just now” The voice said and a couple of seconds later the knife lost the fight with gravity and plummeted to the floor. Beth then proceeded to pick up the rest of the knives and did her best to ignore all the confused looks she was getting from Eliot and the rest of them.
“Wha?” Jane asked as Beth gathered the last of the knives and began to wipe them one by one and put them back in the drawer. Seeing that she would not get an answer out of Beth she turned to Silverfang. Nehvna and Avrion came down the stairs, yawning and stretching.
“What was with all the noise?” Nehvna asked, but whatever reply she would have gotten was cut off by an extremely loud roar of an exceptionally powerful engine that came from outside, it was so powerful that things in the house started vibrating from the intensity of the noise. It cut off after a few seconds and then after a few more seconds there was a knock at the door.

“Im not getting that, I remember what happened last time I answered the door” Eliot said, making Beth chuckle a bit as she opened the door.
“Hello” the man at the door said with a smile before Beth punched him in the face.
“Somehow that looks familiar” Eliot said, watching her punch the man.
“You have a very strange way of showing your affection, you know” he said, rubbing his nose.
“Yes well you are just very strange Sean, so I am allowed to have very strange ways” Beth told him before letting him inside to the ogling people. Nehvna moved close to Jane’s ear and whispered in it, not wanting the others to hear.
“I’ve got a crush on him, he is so scruffy in hair and clothes but he pulls it off so well he looks better than he would in a suit. He devilishly charming and the most chivalrous person I have ever seen, there is just something about him that makes me feel all gooey when I see him, even on the T.V, so him being here in person is..It’s just...Ohh” Nehvna devolved into a squeal, and was a hairs breadth away from jumping up and down. Jane looked at Nehvna with a smile before whispering back.
“Nehvvy, that just makes you like every other girl on the planet” then adding with thought ‘excpet me, I don’t can’t fathom what the others see in him’ she thought. Sean had walked into the middle of the room in the time between Nehvna and Jane’s convosation, he then looked around at the people, and bathed in the awed looks.
“Everyone loves me, everyone thinks I am awesome, everyone-“he began but Beth cut him off sharply.
“Don’t make he have to stab you again you egotistic maniac” She said, sitting down and ignoring the scowls she was getting from Jane and Nehvna.
“Well it seems I have won over the women around here, now all I need to do is win over you” Sean told Beth who scowled at him.
“I seriously will stab you if you carry on” she said, taking one of the knives out of her sleeve to prove it. Then she thought for a second on what he had just said. “Does that mean you don’t think I am a woman?” she asked, brandishing the knife rather dangerously for Sean’s liking.
“Im just saying, you’re the only one not won over” He told Beth, pacifying her, as the knife vanished back up her sleeve. Sean then looked over at Jane and smiled like he was going to cause some mischief.
“Awww, I want Jane as my sister, we could have so much fun” Sean said, causing Beth to throw the knife at him. It sunk into Sean’s head and forced it to roll back before it returned to its original position.
“Dam.That hurt” he said, pulling the knife out of his head.
“How..? How..?” Jane asked, her questions just trailed off to nothing.
“Well this is a book, so I can do anything I want” he told Jane with a “I know more than you” type of smile before holding up a book.
“How does that help you pull knives out of your head?” Jane asked again.
“It doesn’t. I wasn’t even talking about this, I just thought it was a good book and decided to show it to you all” Sean told them before lowering the book, it disappeared from his hand as his arm straightened out.

“Then what book are you referring to?” Jane asked, Beth was right; this day was getting weirder and weirder. Sean looked like he was about to say more but a very stern glare from Beth made him silent.
“Well enough about that, I guess I should get down to why I am here. And to help me I have brought someone you might know” he said, nodding his head to a man stood with a good posture. He was the polar opposite of Sean with straightened hair and a posh suit. Even his body language was
different, the new man was standing serious and seemed like a “to the point” sort of person while Sean’s stance was a lot more chill and, as he had just demonstrated, looked to be the person to have some humorous banter before getting down to business.
“Balance, stop being a stiff” Sean said, Nehvna made a slight squeal as she found out who it was.
“I am, by nature, a stiff. I am the serious person, you are the bantering person. Together we make the team” Balance told him, there was the memory of his words but no memory of him actually having spoken.

“Stop showing off Balance, we can all do that, we just don’t because it is pointlessly showing off” Sean told Balance, his words made it appear that he was annoyed but his tone and body language showed that he was not.
“My apologies” Balance told Sean, this time it was a normal way of speaking. He then looked at the people in the room. Five of them where looking bewildered, one of them was looking annoyed and one of them was looking bored.
“Are we going to get to the Shadow problem yet?” Beth asked, she had heard then banter a hundred times and it was highly annoying.
“Ohh yea, the Shadow problem. He took out Mark so he must have a new master, Shadow is not the kind of person to do such a thing unless he thinks it will get him further that staying with Mark but then let’s face it, Mark is a dweeb and there is a billion people on this planet alone that could get him further than staying with Mark, so it is a bit of a redundant statement” Sean said, stroking his chin to make himself look like his thoughts where more deep. Silverfang picked up on the stance and smiled.

“I do that as well” Silverfang said, which caused Sean to smile as well.
“It is an awesome thinking pose” Sean replied, before catching Nehvna’s eye. “Why is there some shy looking beauty staring at me?” He asked. Nehvna’s face quickly turned bright red, and soft squeaks escaped her as she clung to Jane for support. She had never been called a beauty before, and it was Sean calling her that as well, she couldn’t handle this pressure, it was all too much. She wanted to stop the embarrassing squeaks coming out of her mouth but she had no control over them at all. Jane spotted how Nehvna was feeling and so decided to step in, to salvage the situation while she still could.
“She is my sister, and she can be shy at times, so please be nice” Jane told him, giving Nehvna a hug to comfort her.
“Hmm, If I marry her then I could be Jane’s brother in law” Sean said with a scheming smile, Nehvna’s squeaking doubled as the prospect of marriage entered it, and she buried herself in Jane’s chest, not wanting to be seeable any more.
“Sean. Focus” Beth told him, making two separate words and adding a large amount of emphasis to both of them. He spun round and spoke in single words.

“Yes. Shadow. Right.” He then returned to the use of proper sentences “From what I have seen already jumped ship, took him long enough as well. I’d head to Klass directly but I need to pick up a very important someone, and such a jump would be hard to do undetected” Sean told Beth, plastering the over used look of confusion on everyone’s faces.
“Who is Klass” Eliot asked, Jane had apparently let him do the speaking this time.

“Ahh, Klass, an old friend. He used to be a planet hopper, going from one planet to the next gathering holidays and festivals while spreading the holidays and festivals from the last planet; he takes about two, gives about two and then leaves for the next planet. He does this because he is a Thaui, a being that draws strength from being known. It is similar to Celestial style but require simple knowledge rather than prayer. I met him after one of his visits to a new planet and invited him into a….” Sean failed on the word and simply repeated “a” until Beth spoke.
“You are simply making more questions with your explanation” Beth told Sean.
“Yea that sort of happens a lot” he replied, looking at all the gormless faces, the only one that didn’t look like their brain had jumped ship was Beth, but she had heard it all before.
“He is a friend” Sean said simply, he disliked such simplicity but it was necessary for these people.
“Try keeping on track, Shadow is bad, tell us your plan” Beth told him, he glared at her before speaking again and keeping it simple.

“He has gone, I’m going to find out what he is up to and I want you to take them to Klass’ place, that is why I brought him up” Sean told Beth, but Jane piped up with a question.
“If Klass if a planet hopper” Jane spoke the word strangely, as if it was hard to comprehend herself saying it “Then where would his ‘place’ be?” She asked, fully expecting an answer she couldn’t properly understand. Sean nodded, rather impressed, Jane had taken the knowledge rather well, and was thinking laterally as well. He decided to voice his approval, because he was like that.
“That is a very good question. He settled down after a while, I could tell you where but you would not understand where it was” Sean told her, it was not as confusing a reply as usual but it still shocked everyone.
“So, this off planet is…actually leaving the planet. That…sounds…unique” Silverfang said eventually, finally managing to get the words out. “So, how are we going to get there?” He asked.
“That is also a good question, as I don’t have a space-ship stuffed down my pants, despite what people might think” He said, a rather lewd smile spread across his face before Beth glared at him.
“Umm, sorry about that, well just watch the birdy for a second” Sean then lifted up his finger and everyone was drawn to it, as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. It was Jane that first noticed the different surroundings.

“Why have the walls changed?” She asked, causing Sean to smile, he looked like he was going to go into a massive explanation when Beth starred at him and made him give the simple one.
“We changed houses, and islands, we are now in Ireland, I moved with a certain amount of subtlety since I want to stay relatively under the radar for now.” Sean explained.
“And what radar is this?” Jane asked, she didn’t know there was a radar for people instantly changing islands.
“The Radar. Explanation would be confusing.” Sean replied, hating how he had to keep so brief.
“Is that how we are going to go ‘off planet’ then?” Jane asked, it was not in any way how she though planet travelling would be like. The others seemed to have made Jane the ‘Question Asker’ as everyone else was staying silent.
“No, same planet travel is nice and quick but going to other planets requires a bit more, especially when you move with the subtlety that I am moving with” He explained again, he was doing a lot of explaining but then he liked explaining so it was all good.

“So what does this ‘bit more’ look like then?” Jane asked, she seemed to be the only person not completely stunned by the change of surroundings, but then she was a lot like Beth in that respect, she liked to know what was going on all the time.
“Well it is going to look like the insides of your eyelids, since you are all going to take a nice nap while I set it up” Sean replied, as he finished Jane yawned, she had not felt tired a minute ago but now her eyelids where so heavy and hard to keep open. Everyone around her started yawning as well, Jane was uncertain if they looked more confused or tired but she herself was too tired to think about that.

“What’s happening?” Jane asked in a slurred voice, hardly pronouncing the words. She felt like she hadn’t slept for a week and would like nothing better than to lie down and close her eyes but she kept them open with sheer force of will to at least get the answer from Sean before she crashed.
“I simply suggested that you should take a nice nap while I sorted the whole planet thing out. You are the ones who are now heeding my suggestion and taking a nap.” Sean said, his smile made it blatantly obvious that he was lying though his teeth but Jane could not stay away any longer stay awake. Several thuds where heard in rapid succession as everyone collapsed from extreme exhaustion. Beth and Sean where the only two left standing at the end of it, he smiled in a satisfied manner and turned to his sister.

“Mind giving me a hand? Planet travel is easy enough but when you have to cart such a large group of people around it gets slightly more difficult” Sean told her, she shrugged and got up.
“You know you didn’t have to be so forceful with them, it was even affecting me with the force you put into that.” Beth replied. The feeling of tiredness had gone from her body but everyone else was sleeping soundly, it would be nearly impossible to walk them up with the fatigue they were feeling.
“Well I don’t really have a guide to tell me what her resistance is, so I erred on the side of caution” Sean explained, kicking the carpet. A small obelisk, roughly 5 foot, rose out of the ground with four sides; each side had a space carved specifically for a person’s hand. Beth, Satyr, Sean and Balance all put their hands on the obelisk, and it glowed two different colours, A deep, lush green for Sean and Balance, and a shocking violet for Satyr and Beth, The obelisk shone the two colours for about a minute, and then the walls changed again and the whole atmosphere felt different, even the air smelt different and flowed down your throat in a different way to the air on Earth.
“Well, now that that is done I’m going out. Watch the kids” Sean said, heading to the door. The obelisk sank back into the ground, its job done.

11 A dream. Jane was definitely in a dream. After all, real life didn’t have purple wombats with six arms. But then if she factored in the craziness of the day she had just had it would not surprise her to see them hopping around when she woke up.
“This is not how I usually have a dream, I know they are usually vivid but this is a bit to vivid” Jane said, looking at her hand, she clenched it and then unclenched it, for some reason she was conscious of her actions and they worked just the same as when she was awake. She took a step and felt the ground beneath her foot; she took a breath and felt the air in her lungs. Everything was so real that it was starting to be a little bit creepy. While she was walking on the oddly white floor she observed her surroundings. People of all shapes and sizes where popping in and out at regular intervals, they did not seem to be bothered by wombats hopping around and some people actually engaged in a conversation with them, further enforcing Jane’s believe that she had gone absolutely bonkers.

A person popped into the strange place and looked at Jane with a big smile, she didn’t recognize her but there was a feeling of knowledge about this person in front of her. The mystery was solved the moment she spoke.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here” The person said with a very jubilant tone, giving Jane a hug, Jane was to shocked to reply or even hug her back. After a few seconds the woman broke off the hug and looked at Jane. Jane recognized the tone; she knew exactly who this person was, regardless of their change in appearance. However, she was too stunned trying to work something out to say, and as a result she didn’t say anything.
“Are you alright Jane?” She asked, a tone of worry creeping into jubilant speech.
“Mum...you” Jane whispered, failing to finish her sentence, tears started to spill out of her eyes and roll down her cheeks. Jane’s mum pulled a tissue out of her pocket and began to wipe the tears away.
“No tears Jane, this is a joyous time, not a time for tears” She said as she finished wiping the tears away from Jane’s eyes.
“You left” Jane told her mother, still incapable of speaking anything more than a few words at a time.
“It was not a voluntary leaving dear, I came down with a slight case of death” She said with a slight giggle. Some small being that Jane had not noticed on her shoulder stood up and spoke with a voice that Jane would not have expected from someone so small.
“Elana, death is never slight, unless you don’t actually die. But then it isn’t dead, so death is never slight” The shoulder being said.
“Ohhh shush Enkia, Im trying explain to my daughter about stuff, or thought I have a feeling it is going to be Nintendo Hard” She replied, the shoulder being Enkia didn’t look pleased with the reply but he sat back down anyway, seeming to fade from view as he did so. “Sorry about that, you know how Enkia is” Elana told Jane, who was still staring in disbelieve.
“You died?” Jane asked still completely shocked.
“Only a little bit, man didn’t know how to finish the job so I am here until I can get somewhere else to live.” Elana told Jane before realizing it explained nothing. “Think of someone burning down your house, you no longer have your house but you still have yourself” She explained, or at least tried to explain.
“I..I think I understand that, you are you, but have lost your house...” Jane said finally, basically repeating what Elana had just said. Then Jane spoke more heatedly. “How are you here? And while we are at it, where is here?”
“Well, Im here because this is where I live for now and here is the Astral Plain, where all thoughts go, and all dreams come from. All people are attached to this place somehow, but only a few people out of the connected can come here properly. Somehow, I don’t think you came here voluntarily, I don’t think you can do that. Just yet anyway.” Elana explained.
“No, I didn’t do anything. Sean just told me I was sleepy and then I fell asleep. Which was really weird, but then he is really weird, all that playing with pulling knives out of his head and..grrr he just he just irritates me” Jane told her mother, who seemed to understand.

“Ahhhh. Well that I can explain. You see, Sean sent you to sleep and gave you the push you needed to get here, you have always been on the edge of this place which is why your dreams where always so vivid but Sean gave you that nudge you needed to get over here” She said, Elana saw that Jane didn’t understand that part and sighed.
“Don’t worry; it will all seem clearer later. But for now it looks like you are going” she said, nodding to Jane’s slowly disappearing body.
“What...what is happening?” Jane asked frantically as she turned ghost-like.
“Your grip of this place was borrowed, so you can’t control it. You’re waking up now and leaving here slowly.” Elana told Jane calmingly.
“I don’t want to leave you” Jane replied, reaching out for Elana.
“Don’t worry, you will return soon” She said as Jane’s eyes snapped opened. She sat up and took a sharp breath before looking around; everyone else was still asleep apart from Beth, Satyr and Balance, who were milling around the room.
“Quite amazing, that you are up so soon. You shouldn’t be up yet. ” Beth said, helping Jane off the floor. She shook her head a few times and looked around the room.
“It, feels different. I feel different. I can feel things more” she spoke generally and as confusingly as Sean. Beth frowned but she understood it clearly, it was just early was all.
“That’s fine, it’s just a side-effect” Beth said quickly, swiftly making a lie and telling it flawlessly. Jane nodded and then looked at the door.
“What’s out there?” She asked, causing Beth to smile widely.
“Out there, well dear, let’s go have a look” Beth said, opening the door, sunlight poured though the ajar door into the room.

12. A horrible smell wafted in from the door and Jane clenched her nose in disgust.
“That is horrible, the first place you take me in a cesspool?” She asked, pinching her nose to stop the smell from getting in, Beth on the other hand smiled, seemingly undisturbed by the smell.
“Well this is not where we are stopping-you should have been out for this part-but Sean had to make a quick stop to pick someone up.” She told Jane, the rest of the people in Eliot’s house seemed to be waking up -something Satyr noted with interest- and gathering around the door, trying to find out what the horrid smell was and what a new planet was like. Several of the people on the street where looking into the house with mixed emotions, greed and lust where the predominant ones but they quickly scurried away as Balance appeared in the doorway.
“This is not the safest of places to be, we should find Sean quickly and move on” Balance suggested in a tone that sounded more like an order than a suggestion.
“Yes, your right. Let’s go” Beth said with a sigh, stepping out of the house with everyone else in tow.
“Wait” Jane said, stopping in her tracks “Where are Nehvna and Avrion?” she asked, not wanting to leave them alone in the house in this place.

“Don’t worry about them, no one could get into that house and they probably went back to sleep as they where woken up by the car, just let them sleep a while” Beth said, continuing to walk away from the house. Jane’s stomach growled and Balance pulled a sandwich from his pocket, how it had gotten there-and how it had stayed in such a pristine condition- was beyond Jane but she was happy for the food so she took it from him with a quick “Thanks” and bit into it, the sandwich tasted so good and it filed her up a fair bit. She guessed that it was more of the weird stuff that had been going on so much recently and decided not to think anymore of it. Silverfang broke off from the pack and moved down to Jane at the back. He smiled softly at her as she ate the sandwich.

“How are you holding up?” He asked, referring to all the craziness that had happened.
“I’m doing alright” she replied, finishing her sandwich and taking his hand, a smile appeared on her own lips as she walked down the street with her Silverfang. The only thing that made this scenario bad was the terrible smell and leers of passerbys. “I hate how they are looking at me” Jane said to Silverfang quietly, clutching to his arm tighter.
“Don’t worry, ill protect you” He said, secretly he liked how Jane clung to her, Jane-for her part- realized that she was pressed tightly to him and blushed.
“Where are we going Beth?” She asked to change the subject before it got too much for her to handle.

“To Sean, we are going to meet up with him and then get off this place, I just hope he has done what he needs to do by the time we get there” Beth told Jane, before slightly picking up the pace. They small band walked along the road and nine out of ten people glared at them or leered in some way, Jane got used to it eventually as it just became common place. Eventually they arrived at a large and sinister looking building, Beth was not put off by the look and opened the door, the sounds of gunshots echoed from within so she shut the door again.
“He isn’t don’t yet” She said simply, as un-put off by the gunshots as the sinister look of the building. The rest of the group however had varied reactions, Eliot and Silverfang looked shocked, Jane looked shocked but also looked accepting, as if it was just par with how her life had been going so far, and Balance looked as if he had seen this situation far too many times.
“Those…those…those where gunshots!” Eliot eventually managed to shout, getting over his surprise and managing to be vocal again.
“Yep, they where, one of the two things you get when you fire a gun, the other being a bullet” Beth said sarcastically, leaning against the building with a sigh. While Eliot was panicking and Silverfang was trying to look protective Jane looked up at the sign above the building. The letters where in some foreign alien language but somehow Jane knew what they said.
“The Human House?” She read aloud, making the tone into a questioning tone. Beth was shocked at the speed in which Jane was progressing and Balance had to speak up before she noticed.

“Yes, it is a place where humans are sold to other humans, one of the many stains on this planet” he explained, scorn entering his voice at the end of it. Whatever reply Jane was going to make was cut off by Silverfang, who had begun sniffing the air.
“Is that…smoke?” He asked, causing the others to sniff the air as well. Beth sighed and started counting.
“Five…four…three” as she got to zero the doors crashed open and Sean walked out, a large revolver in each hand and a tall, green haired girl next to him, she looked about eighteen or so and was wearing ragged, old clothing.

“I hate the clothes these places give you, so itchy” The green haired girl said, scratching herself in several places, the sub-standard clothes seemed to strain against the girl’s large breasts and looked as if it was going to split at any moment.
“Well, Nena, you will get yourself into these messes” Sean said, a large amount of smoke pouring though the building behind him and the fire not far behind. “Now, if no one objects I suggest we move on before we all burn to death” He said cheerfully, discarding the rifles and stalking off down the street without waiting for anyone.

The green haired girl-Nena, Sean had called her- walked off after him, a man leered obviously at her large breasts and so Nena swiftly head-butted him and carried on.
“Do you know her?” Jane asked Beth as the rest of the people carried on at a slower rate so they didn’t seem to be a part of the same group.
“Ohh yes, I know all about Nenatalev” Beth said smiling but not revealing anything else despite Jane’s repeated probing.

13: Sean strolled into the ‘Human House’ and looked around. It took quite a bit of constraint not to pull out the obscenely large .500 revolver he had in his jacket and start firing off rounds at everyone in the building. He really hated these places, and the only reason he was blending in was before if he started on a rampage right now, he would never be able to do what he actually came here for. He was intercepted by a man-all smiles and fine clothes- who led him to a large hall, the sign marked it the ‘Auction hall’ and Sean knew this was where he was going to find her. He was led to an empty seat and given a handle with a number painted on it, then instructed to raise the handle when he wished to buy the person appearing on the stage. Sean forced a smile and thanked the man, it was the hardest thing he had done in a while. But then he made up for it be thinking about how he was going to set fire to this place and mercilessly massacre everyone who took part in this heinous market.

The auction started and Sean gritted his teeth as people where dragged onto the stage and the man announced what race they where, what planet they came from and if they where famous or not. With his deep green eyes he could see the fear, anguish and unbridled horror on most of the people’s faces. One man however, did not have any of that. He had the face of a man who was not going to give in to the overwhelming odds he was faced with, and would stand defiant until his life was extinguished. The man was introduced as ‘Captain Zann of the Khani military’ which peaked Sean’s interest. The Khani where old friends of his, and he couldn’t allow such a man to be bought. He was going to blow the hell out of everyone anyway, but it was a principle thing, little more than that. He rose his handle-feeling very dirty at doing so, regardless of the reason he was doing it- and another man in t he crowd rose his. Sean had to raise his own four more times before his opponent gave up, it would have drained his funds rather considerably if he was going to pay.

The auction went on until it came to the last one. The ‘best for last’ as the announcer said, and then a girl-barely 18 by the looks of her- was dragged on stage. The chains where very thick, the handcuffs and ankles reduced her movement speed to a crawl, and she nearly fell over when the chain around her neck was yanked, dragging her on stage. The announcer appealed to the crowd a bit with his rather effluent skills before telling them who she is.
“This one, our greatest catch in a decade, is Nenatalev Woodhouse. She is known to be one of the much-sort after Daimios and a prize for any collector. She will be difficult to tame, but we believe that it is worth the challenge to have one of these rare beauties. Bidding starts at 100 million” He announced. Sean thought that was quite a good price, considering her flaws. But then the seller wouldn’t tell them until they had received none-refundable payment. At any rate, Sean now saw who he had come for, and stood up. A few people behind him complained that their bidding sticks would not be visible, as many people where raising their own sticks in hopes of bagging this magnificent opportunity.

Sean, however, had a different idea. He drew the revolver from his jacket and fired it at the announcer; the mammoth round flew from the barrel of the equally mammoth revolver. The bullet head was pushed in slightly, making the already powerful bullet a dum-dum round, and allowing it to cause much greater damage on impact. However, it never made impact, as the bullet smashed into a protective shield, a red ripple flung out around the impact area before dissipating. Sean had expected something like that and so had fired the bullet with expectations of failure, now his expectations had been met; he had properly gauged the gaps in the shield. He stomped the ground and a stalagmite ripped out of the wooden stage that the announcer and Nenatalev where standing on, ascending upwards until it caught on Nena’s handcuffs. Nena quickly gripped the stalagmite and her whole body glowed a deep earthen green. She then quickly parted her hands-the cuffs that where restricting her movement snapped like wet paper- she then parted her feet and they followed in the footsteps of their wrist-kin, pieces of chain scattered across the stage and she reached up and pulled the metal collar off. Sufficiently de-chained, Nena turned to the announcer with a smile. The man pulled a gun from his coat-it was a very small gun compared to Sean’s- and fired it at Nena. Either he was a poor shot or Nena moved out of the way of every bullet, since she was not hit once on her slow approach. His clip ran dry just as Nena arrived at him.

“I don’t like being chained like that. I think I’ll show you what happens to people that try” she told the announcer, punching him in the ribs. The force of the punch rippled though his entire torso, and rib shards ripped their way though his opposite side, showing just how much force went into the single punch. She watched the man crumple to the floor and smiled, glad that another one of them was not to see the light of day again, they would be more, there always was more, but this one at least was finished. She then stretched, the chains had cramped her muscles, and it felt good to give them some exercise again. With her business out of the way, she looked over to the audience stand and saw her dad, firing his gun into the crowd, shooting security and patrons alike. He was also splaying his free hand and stamping the ground, balls of compact earth where smashing into several people, stalagmites where hewing threw dozens of patrons with a single rupture and large walls rose up, then fell down again, crushing even more people under its stony embrace.

A group of people reached the door and the man at the head frantically reached for the handle, but as his hand gripped the handle sharp spikes fired out, impaling the fleeing patrons. Nena had not seen Sean do such a vindictive thing like that, and that look in his father’s eyes was not something she had seen often. It was determination and hatred, two things that did not suit Sean in any way. The hatred was understandable-even for Sean, despite his usually calm demeanour-, but that determination to end life for someone that worshipped Gaia, and respected all life was unnerving. But then, worship was a strong word, it was rather more respectful acknowledgment. But it was still scary to see him go all out like this. Nena sighed, she needed to get in there and start lightening the load, so he could get back to his smiles quicker. Nena didn’t want his father to be like this, it was not right. She approached the shield and looked at it, this close she could see a faint crackle in front of her, so she punched it. The red ripple flung out from the point of impact again, but the shield failed to maintain itself under this impact, and so it shattered. Nena heard the generator explode from behind the stage, which made sure that the shield really was down.

She hopped off the stage and slightly-faster-than-walked over to Sean; however by the time she had gotten there nobody was left alive. He had drawn a second mammoth revolver and added a second gun to his lead-wall of death, mowing down the people before Nena could get to him.
“Well, that was…bracing” Nena said as Sean smiled, but it lacked any warmth.
“Just wait, it gets better” He told her, twelve red glyphs appeared around him and then flew away, slapping themselves onto the walls of the building. “Well, then. Time to go” he said, dropping the sheen on the door and kicking it open, he still held his two revolvers in his hands and Nena saw the reason why as a few security guards that were locked out of the building ran at him, Sean fired his two guns at them and they exploded where the bullets him them. She then heard the activation of the glyphs in the auction room and could immediately smell the smoke, thick and acrid as it roared though the building. Sean didn’t seem to care about the fire or the dead bodies he stepped over as he walked towards the front door, when he had arrived there he kicked open the door and looked at the confused, somewhat scared looks of the group surrounding the now burning Human House. Nena decided to defuse the situation with an off-hand comment.
“I hate the clothes these places give me, they are so itchy” She said, scratching herself to further reinforce her point. Sean picked up on what she was doing and decided to throw his bit in.
“Well, Nena, you will get yourself into these messes” Sean said, the building was really going up in flames now, and so he added some more. “Now, if no one objects I suggest we move on before we all burn to death” He said cheerfully, discarding the revolvers and stalking off down the street without waiting for anyone.




CHAPTER TWO
The Plan


14: Sean and Nena had a considerable headstart on the rest of the group, and It took them a fair amount of time to arrive at the house, when they did they heard the sounds of a shower coming from a bathroom that did not exist when they set out, which must have meant that Sean had been doing his odd stuff again. Jane entered first and decided to make a joke, since Sean was looking a bit down.
“So you can do pluming then?” Jane jokingly asked.
“Yep, im also Italian” He replied, equally as jokeful. He was obviously not going to let anyone see how he was really feeling, and so was covering up with jokes.
“Well then go jump on Shadow’s head” Beth told him, rather exasperated with his antics. Beth didn’t seem to catch on to Sean’s mood, or probably thought that Sean couldn’t feel down, that he was simply immune to negative emotions. Sean could wear a person out just by being more than a ten mile run. Jane laughed at Beth’s comment, she wasn’t usually so grumpy. It must be her brother.
“So, is this that Klass person’s planet?” Silverfang asked, hoping it wasn’t.
“Nope” Sean replied, making Silverfang sigh in relief. “I just had to pick up my daughter, she is a nightmare sometimes but hey, she is family” He continued, shrugging casually. However casual he was acting, Jane was staring at him with a look of pure shock.
“You have a daughter?” she asked, nearly screeching in surprise.
“Yes, I have a daughter, why is everyone surprised to learn that? I’m also Master of the Tevintar Warlords, but no one is shocked at that” Sean replied in comically annoyed tone.
“I don’t know who the bloody Tev-whatever Warlords are!” Jane shouted.
“Tevintar. Teh-vin-tar” Sean pronounced for her. Jane looked like she was getting ready to throw another crazy shouting fit but Silverfang stepped in.
“So, how did that hallway, and shower, get here?” He asked, changing the subject and trying to control Jane who had suddenly developed a temper.
“I made it, the shower as well. Not very complex really, just convinced reality that there was a hallway and shower there” Sean said with a nonchalant tone as if what he had just said made perfect sense.
“You….you convinced reality?” Silverfang repeated, not quite sure that was what Sean had said. After all, it made no sense at all to say you convinced reality of something.
“Well of course I convinced reality, who else am I going to convince? Chaoz sucks at plumbing, unlike myself.” Sean told Silverfang, piquing Eliot’s previously uninterested curiosity.
“Who’s Chaos?” He asked Sean, who raised a finger.
“It isn’t Chaos, it is Chaoz. More of a zed towards the end rather than an ess” Sean told Eliot, pronouncing something again.
“But that just makes no sense at all” Eliot replied, Sean simply shrugged.
“I don’t make up the rules. Or rather I do, but I don’t make them make sense” Sean said, shrugging again before walking over to a couch and lying down.
“There is no time to be lying around Sean, we have a ship to catch” Beth told him, causing him to groan. He sighed and got up from the couch.
“Fine, let’s go” he said, heading to the door. Balance coughed to get everyone’s attention.
“Are you forgetting someone?” He asked. A look of realization slowly dawned on Sean’s face.
“Ohh yea. Nena. Forgot about her” Sean laughed as the shower cut off. Nena walked out of the bathroom, fully dressed and with shining, slightly wet hair. The hallway closed off when Nena exited it as if it had never existed. Every seemed to not be as shocked at the sudden disappearance of the hallway however, like they were getting used to the rampant disregard for normality.
“We off then?” She asked, flicking her hair out of the shirt she had pulled over it and joining the group.
“We are” Sean confirmed, opening the door and ushering everyone out before shutting the door behind him.

The walk to the Space port was stinky but otherwise uneventful, people usually avoided a large group on this planet- Nena’s glares reinforced this avoidance- aside from Nehvna and Avrion catching up to the group and grumbling about being left behind. Sean snapped his fingers and announced that he knew he had forgotten something then blamed Beth for not reminding him. She shrugged and replied it that it was not her responsibility to act as his memory. As the group arrived at their ship-a rather small thing, designed to carry only a few dozen people at most- a mountain of a man was waiting there for them, and a tall, but not nearly as large man was stood next to him.
“Hey Niall, come to see us off?” Sean asked, smiling.
“Sort of. I have come for the girl, and you will see I am not alone in this” He announced calmly. Sean looked around and saw that everyone aside from Eliot, Silverfang and Balance had drawn assorted weaponry. Swords, guns and small wrist mounted crossbows where drawn and pointed at Sean, Nena, and Balance. they did not think that the rest where
“Ahh, going to be like that then?” He asked no one in particular.
“Sorry Sean, just business I am afraid, and our pockets have become to empty for my taste.” Beth replied, grabbing Jane, causing Silverfang to growl.
“I don’t know what is going on here but someone better explain” He demanded, echoing Jane’s own distressed questioning.
“Be quiet pup, we don’t have time to deal with you” Mr Glee told Silverfang, approaching Jane.
“Do something!” Eliot shouted at Sean, he couldn’t do anything against these odds-Satyr herself could tie him in a knot- but he knew Sean would be less disadvantaged.
“Like what? I can handle this amount of opposition about as well as you can” He retorted, obviously unhappy to be so outnumbered. Mr Glee grabbed hold of Jane in his massive fists-Beth released her after a slight glaring contest between the two- and carried her towards the ship.
“Don’t follow us Sean, it will not be healthy for anyone if you do.” Niall told Sean, who glared back.
“Well, don’t worry. You won’t make it past the week, so I don’t need to.” Sean threatened, the threat made all the more chilling as it was said with his usual completely calm voice, and there was not even a quiver of anger. Eliot however was venting off enough anger for the both of them.
“I can’t fucking believe you would do something like this Beth! I thought you where her bloody Sister!” He shouted, rage clearly evident in his tone. Silverfang was simply snarling at everyone he could make eye contact with. Beth, for her part, did not even turn around to look at Eliot as they loaded a squirming, screaming Jane onto the ship. The door slammed shut and a few seconds later the ship took off, leaving the rest of them stood in the space port watching it leave the planet.

“Well, that sucked.” Nena announced, stretching as if they had not just been betrayed and Jane kidnapped.
“Sucked?! Sucked!? Jane has been kidnapped by the people that we used to call our friends! This is a nightmare!” Silverfang shouted, blowing off as much steam as his partner Eliot.
“I’ll see if I can contact Scarlet, they are obviously going for the highest bounty on Jane, so I’ll get her to find out who is giving out the biggest” Sean told Eliot and Silverfang, trying to make it seem like he had a plan so it would calm them down, at least a small bit. Eliot looked like he was going too shouted at him and then stopped and thought for a moment.
“How is Scarlet yours when Balance is also yours? I thought a person could only have ever have one Familiar” Eliot asked, his tone slightly more conversational but still tense with anger and stress. Sean smiled as he remembered that Eliot was a human, and humans have sup-standard knowledge about Familiars.
“You can have as many Familiars as you want connected to you at any one time; there really is no limit to how many Familiars you can call your own, as long as the Familiars get along alright, if they don’t then you are in for a rough ride. However there is a limit on how many you can have at your side. Familiars use you-“He gestured at Eliot to reinforce his point”-to anchor to this world. The greater your strength in….I guess humans would call it spirit, or willpower. Anyway, the greater your ‘spirit’ the more Familiars you can anchor to this world at one time.” He explained, Eliot was nodding as if he understood, but didn’t say anything so Sean asked him a question.

“Have you ever tried to summon a second Familiar?” Sean asked, Eliot shook his head.
“No, I never knew it was possibly. And I don’t want to, I got lucky with Silverfang but I don’t want to risk summoning a Familiar that is my opposite and then being stuck with them for the rest of my life” Eliot told Sean, who smiled-obviously as something Eliot had said.
“You do know that you don’t have to bond the first Familiar you summon right? You can try the summoning a hundred times to get a Familiar that you feel you could feel you could be with” Sean explained again, the look on Eliot’s face was an amusing one and he ran up to Silverfang who was still throwing dozens of expletives at the long departed space ship.
“We are going to try something” He said franticly, dragging the protesting Familiar into the Space port and heading for somewhere less open that the runway, leaving Sean alone with his daughter and Balance.
“So, how’s school?” He asked awkwardly, his skills rather lacking in this sort of thing.
“How’s school? How’s school?! We haven’t seen each other in nearly a thousand years and you ask the crappiest, most overused and over-rated question in the entirety of creation! If you ever cared to take notice of my life, I finished school a long time ago” She shouted at him, getting off all the frustrations she had since the last time she saw her father.

“Well I was just trying to break the ice. I suck that that sort of thing, usually I am great at breaking things which makes this a lot more difficult to understand” Sean replied, shrugging. Nena simply sighed exasperated and walked off. “Try not to get captured again” Sean called after her
“Try not to go on another murdering spree” she shouted back, feeling bad as soon as she had said it, but there was nothing to do, so she simply stormed into the space-port. Sean then looked at Balance, who had been eyeing him as if he wanted to ask something but didn’t want to interrupt the family chat.
“What are you planning?” Balance asked, causing Sean to smile.
“A more apt question is what am I not planning, which would be breakfast tomorrow.” He paused for a few seconds before continuing. “I have decided. Pancakes” he told Balance, who shook his head in despair.
“Call Scarlet. I’m going to do stuff” Balance told Sean before he faded from view, simply not being there a few seconds later.

Mr. Glee finished switching the ship to Auto-pilot and got up from the chair. He had about an inch of wiggle room due to his monstrous frame which made moving rather hard for him. The girls seemed to take every opportunity to mock him about this, he found it very annoying but then he was a way not to think about what they had just done. Kidnapping Jane was bad enough, but betraying Sean was a thing that would keep Niall up for months to come, if he lived that long. Most people that crossed Sean didn’t survive the week, which sucked for the people who did it on Sunday.
“How is she?” Niall asked, referring to Jane.
“On ice, don’t want to risk her unlocking anything in this ship” Beth replied.
“Who exactly is her? I know she is important and all, but no one has explained what she is, or why she is so important “Avrion asked. Niall laughed at the comment but Nehvna glared at the angel darkly.
“If you don’t know what she is, then don’t ask. You won’t understand the explanation” Nehvna told Avrion, obviously in a foul mood to have done this.
“Sorry” Avrion apologized meekly, Nehvna hardly ever talked to her like this and so when she did it scared Avrion. She was scared of a lot of things considering she was a Familiar.
“We will be arriving soon, be prepared, and leave the angel here. It is not the kind of place for her” Niall told them, heading back to the cockpit, leaving everyone in a dark mood.

Eliot looked at the Familiar circle he had just made. Silverfang watched from the corner, he had been told that people, all people, could have as many Familiars as they care to summon, the only limit being the amount out at one time. Silver had not heard this before and was sceptical, but he was humouring Eliot, because he was a good cook. Amongst other things.
“Here goes something, on the word of a mad-man” Eliot muttered to himself, activating the circle. It shone a deep red and the light emitted from the circle, then a flash filled the room and a girl was stood in the now unlit circle. The girl looked passed Eliot and to Silverfang, a visage of awe on her face.
“My King. I am at your service from this day hence, until my death” She said, bowing before Silverfang, whose own visage was one of complete confusion.
“Errr….that is nice and all. But he was the person who summoned you” Silver told the girl, pointing to Eliot.
“I care little for who summoned me; it is you that I pledge my blade to” She replied, drawing a long polished blade, the drawing of such caused Silver to back away slightly.
“Whoa-ok, let’s put the swords away and calm the hell down” He told the slightly crazed girl. Whatever Silver thought of her, she did sheath the sword and stepped away.
“I am sorry to have startled you my King. It seems you have lost your former glory. It seems the humans have dulled your senses and your blade. It will be difficult to retrieve them, but I shall persevere for all Lupus Kind” She told him, holding her head high. It was then that Silver noticed a pure white wolf tail swishing between her legs.
“Why…why are you calling me King, Im not part of any hierarchy ” Silver told that quite insane new Familiar.
“You mean you do not even know what you are? I have some work ahead of me, it seems” The wolf girl said, sighing deeply as she realized how much work there actually was to do.

14: Several minutes later, after managing to convince the wolf girl not to stab anyone, Eliot and Silverfang returned to Sean with the wolf girl in tow. He was stood facing a shirtless man who had a thick metal shield strapped to his back.