Legendarian Mistress
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The Past Is Only Pages
A/N: The Past Is Only Pages is influenced by what happens before Plea for the Reaper. A big thankies goes out to Sgt Shock for providing the title of my fic and JX Valentine for her beta-ing.
Disclaimer: This original story, "The Past Is Only Pages", is rated M for mild language, deaths and vague nudity when shifting.
*****
A/N: A very BIG thankies goes out to Polursine for helping out with Bone's appearance.
Forty-two years before the events of Plea for the Reaper...
My name is Pere and I am eighteen-years-old. I am of average height for an eighteen-year-old, and I have bluish-grey hair and bright blue eyes.
I was born a shape-shifter; my form is a peregrine falcon. Our ability to adapt to new environments, jealousy and hatred against us because ordinary humans view us as freaks is what we have to endure. These are also the reasons why they hunt us in an attempt to reduce our numbers.
My homeland of Zardantor is separated by a massive valley path. Both groups of shifters, good and bad, know this no man's land as the Cursed Darkness. The difference between us and the evil ones is they prefer to stay in their animal forms.
At this point in my life, I was currently serving under Corporal Rayleigh. Thirty one-year-old Corporal Rayleigh was my superior in the armed forces of Zardantor. Her striking blonde hair and fierce emerald eyes were reminiscent of her viciousness when she shifted to her jaguar form. As she looked at Relena and myself while giving the order to go out on a training exercise, Corporal Rayleigh's eyes flashed.
Relena was only a couple of years older than me. Blind from birth, Relena used the air currents to see locations and other beings. She was tall for a twenty-year-old and had elf-like ears.
While it was good to be out of the confines of the ever-so-important army base, I was a bit nervous about facing Relena in a work out. She had this way of reading other peoples' minds, even though she wasn't aware of doing it, to implement a countermove.
"We better get started, Relena," I said to her from across the vast meadow. "Otherwise, Corporal Rayleigh will be annoyed when she realizes we haven't done anything."
Relena was the sort of shifter who made jokes about our superior officers. When she didn't make a joke about Rayleigh, I immediately knew something was wrong. "Relena, what is it?" I questioned as I moved to my companion's side in an instant. That was one advantage of having the lightning-like reflexes of one of the human world's fastest creatures.
"The peace," was all that she said at first.
We were in a peaceful time, but her comment concerned me when her voice wavered. "Relena, what is it? What do you know?" I asked again. If Relena knew something was going to happen to the peace, then I wanted to know as soon as possible. Actually, I wanted to know now, but I had to wait for Relena to reveal what she knew.
She looked at me with her sightless eyes. "The peace is not going to last much longer. There will be a slaughter, and two organizations will be formed on the basis of loyalty and deceit."
I was stunned into silence. I truly didn't know what to say. There was one thing I knew, though. Most of the time, Relena's predictions turned out to be true. Her on-again, off-again clairvoyant ability came in handy when it worked. The upside of this was we didn't have to do our training, and the downside was we had to tell Corporal Rayleigh without delay. As we steadily made our way back to the base, I supported my friend and pondered upon what her message meant.
After hearing the news from Relena, Corporal Rayleigh's familiar voice of authority shouted out to all of the shifters, which caused us to fall silent. "Listen up, team!" she said.
We formed a line and we placed our right arms across our chest. Our left arms went up near our heads in the traditional saluting fashion.
"At ease, everyone," she commanded. We put our arms by our sides and waited expectantly. "As I'm sure all of you know, a few minutes ago we received word that the peace that has flourished in Zardantor for so long will end. We may be fighting our brethren, but we are not fighting our siblings! No true siblings of ours would wish to start this war! So we, as Argent Unit, must fight for our freedom!"
"Zardantor has been free for as long as I can remember," I growled.
Corporal Rayleigh carried on with the rest of her speech about how we would prepare at 0700 to go to war against our misguided brethren. It was protracted and mind-numbing. I was starting to fall asleep. The Corporal wrapped up her battle declaration and let everyone go to bed.
*****
Ordinary people viewed us as "half-breeds undeserving of the title of human" — that is, children who had been born from parents who were pure-blood shifters. And then, of course, there were the rogues and evil ones. Rogues usually constituted humans who had been turned by the malice of another shifter. Evil ones were those shifters who were arrogant enough to believe that their human form was the weaker body.
I stood, watching my cronies challenge each other in realistic battles. Animalistic wrestling was one of the favourite past-times my minions involved themselves in. A couple of them were already covered in blood and the chest of a werebadger had been opened. At over six feet in height, I didn't really care if anyone saw me in all of my scaled glory. Menacing crimson eyes stared at my surroundings.
"Isn't it time we actually did something, boss?" A werebull bellowed in complaint. Werebulls were known for their severe impatience and this one was a fine example of that. Ramos was a reddish bipedal Brahman. He had long horns and hoof-like hands. He stared at me, waiting for a response. Sensing his brown eyes on me, watching my every move, I turned slowly.
His companion, a werejackal, snorted. "Ramos, you're gonna get in trouble. Bone doesn't like it when any of us are impatient," he muttered under his breath. Brownish-black in colour, the shifter was two-legged like everyone else in my group. He was a jumpy creature, but he was willing enough to try and quieten Ramos. His fangs were always a deciding factor if he tussled with any of the pure-bloods.
I observed the jackal in a new light, looking thoughtful. He has some brains about him. What was his name again? Oh yes, Yuda. Well, it looks like Yuda just earned himself a promotion. "Yuda has a point, Ramos. I don't like impatience from my warriors. I am in control, so remember that. For your vice, you'll do sentry duty today!" My voice had a snappy, hateful tone when I spoke. "As for you, Yuda, I'd like you to come over here."
Instantly, the jackal froze, thinking he'd done something to irritate me. "What...? I haven't... I thought you were rousing on Ramos... Why me...?" Yuda stammered, clearly intimidated by my features.
A werehyena burst out laughing. A hunched back and orangeish fur with black spots certainly set Kaden apart from the rest of my cronies. He was a hyena through and through. Once he started laughing, there was generally no stopping him. "I never thought I'd live to see Yuda shaking in his fur... Hehehe."
"HEY! YOU SHUT UP!" the other carnivore shouted back.
My tolerance for infighting was like walking on a knife's edge. I threw back my head and slammed my two-metre tail into the ground. "ENOUGH!" I roared. "Kaden, control your hyena instincts, please. Yuda, you haven't done anything wrong. Just come over here so I can talk to you about your promotion."
Silence cut through the group like a breeze on the worst winter's day. "Promotion?" Yuda questioned, looking confused. "Me? Why?"
"Because you alone had the brains to try and quieten Ramos," I explained. "If you accept, you'll be head of the warriors. If you decline, then I'll leave you alone."
"Then I decline. I'd rather be left alone," the werejackal answered. "I'm sorry, Bone, but..."
I interrupted his sentence. "That's okay. It's fine by me." With the issue closed, I strode off, leaving the others still staring at me in confusion.
An hour later, a wereferret approached me, giggling madly. The white-furred Shaan was one of my best spies, despite his drinking problem. Being small enabled the ferret to slip into places where my bigger followers couldn't, and he labelled himself our intelligence officer. "Your Majesty, I have very important news."
I frowned at my minion, as I very much disapproved of his habit. "Shaan, you've been drinking again."
Stopping his ridiculous outburst, the ferret looked at me and waved paper in my face. I grabbed the paper and read it. It was an intelligence report, documented by none other than Shaan himself. Doubting the possibility of Shaan writing neatly, I was proven right when my eyes struggled to make out the sloppily scrawled words. In the end, I shoved the paper back at Shaan and growled at him to read it out himself.
"It says at 2025 this evening, the pure-blood shifters formed the organization known as Argent Unit after hearing that the peace in Zardantor would end. And that's coming from a blind twenty-year-old. So, Your Majesty, what are we going to do in response?"
I growled again, louder this time. "Firstly, I want you to stop calling me Your Majesty. You only do that when you're drunk, but besides that, it's detrimental to my position. Stop drinking is number two on the list. Thirdly, inform anyone who's still awake to prepare themselves for tomorrow's war. And fourthly, I now declare us to be known as Moonlight Circle!"
*****
The next morning...
"Since our shifter brethren have declared this war, which Relena had the foresight to see, we will stay here and they can bring the battle to us!" Corporal Rayleigh yelled firmly. "Remember, shifting is prohibited unless you're injured!"
It was basic knowledge among our kind that when we went into battle, we had to remain in our human forms unless we were wounded. Once we were injured, it was our law that we had to shift in order to try and regain the advantage. Our misguided brethren, on the other hand, were already in their shifted forms. This would make the war harder, as it was humans fighting against animals. Not to mention that some of the evil ones had specialized magic on their side.
I turned to face Relena, who had been beside me a couple of minutes ago, only to find she wasn't there anymore. Concerned, my head whipped around as I looked for her. My azure eyes spotted her crouching by a wall of the base. Moving quickly, I made my way over to her. Looking at her shaking figure, I had a bad feeling she'd had another prediction. "Relena, is it worse this time?" I asked softly.
"Most of our forces will be wiped out," she whispered, only loud enough for me to hear. "Pere, we have to get out of here."
I stared at her, shocked at her second revelation. My mind went blank as I processed her words. Most of our forces would be wiped out. There was no doubt about it. It was true. But we couldn't leave, not then. Corporal Rayleigh would see that as desertion and she would punish us.
"Less thinking, you two, and more focus! Hostile shifters approaching!" Corporal Rayleigh barked. She apparently read our expressions but totally got the message wrong. We nodded and tensed our muscles.
As they approached us, nine of the evil ones charged with clawed hands ready, fangs bared and horns sharpened. All that the others could do was move into a tae kwon do stance. Even we copied them.
The werebull drove his horn into the nearest shifter's heart, killing him instantly. A group of the werebull's companions swarmed on a quartet of our companions. Two of the evil ones next to Corporal Rayleigh were taken down instantly. I didn't know how, but I just knew that they weren't there anymore.
To my left came the unmistakable flash of ivory fangs. I evaded, but I could my enemy's fangs come close to ripping the left side of my face away. A very small trickle of blood oozed down my forehead and dripped along my face.
Lingering in the exact same spot, I was horror-struck. My worst fear had almost become reality. This incident made me feel relief from surviving and extreme fright for the shock that I might not be so lucky next time.
All that I could see was a blurred mess of orange, black, mottled green and tan with the occasional white. I had no idea what to do, so I looked around me. The grass had become littered with freshly fallen bodies of shifters, both good and bad. A new shifter would fall every five or ten seconds, injured or deceased. My next instinct was to look for the owner of the ivory fangs in the middle of all this pandemonium. I glanced to my right and saw the shifter, a werefox, finishing off a ginger-coloured werecat. Staring blankly at the werecat's twisted body, I recognized it as Faith. No, no, no! Faith trusted me. I promised last night to protect her. What have I done? He seemed to be a member of the evil ones' suicide unit — picking off our own shifters with well aimed, crushing blows — even though he was looking worse for wear himself. My first thought was, "Better avoid him." So I did. I made erratic, twisting manoeuvres as he came at me. I put myself closer to the fight, near my companions, so that he would stop targeting me for fear of striking his own.
My dread hung about, however. There were thrusts of clawed hands, horns, fangs and human flesh in every direction. There was an evil shifter in front of me all of a sudden. Fangs bore down on me, which I had to dodge and parry with my vulnerable skin. I noticed Corporal Rayleigh snap the neck of my assailant with the paw-like hands of her jaguar body. Blood flowed steadily from gashes on her arms. I was still shocked from seeing Faith be killed, but I managed to return the sisterly nod Corporal Rayleigh promptly gave. She ended the lives of two more evil ones at the same time with a combination of her fangs and claws before I lost track of her in the bustling activity. There was an obvious reason why she was Argent Unit's leader.
The werehyena burst through a deceased group of my Argent companions, jerking his head from side to side, eliminating any other pure-bloods with his sharp teeth. I watched hopelessly as the fangs or horns of various other evil ones found their mark in the flesh of their victims. Suddenly, the hawk form of an Argent shifter was frozen in mid-fight by ice-based magic. Everything seemed to go downhill from here, as the werebull's horn was thrust at the ice. An evil one using the fire element melted the ice so that his companion's horn could strike home, which was the hawk's heart. Because of the horn sticking out of his chest, my now dead friend was in a position that would have been uncomfortable if he were still alive.
I looked around for Relena, taken aback by the ferocity of the war the evil ones had initiated. She was in a corner, in her shifted form, with her left ear half hanging. It was clear to see it had been damaged. I felt nauseous when I realized Moonlight Circle had hardly any dead and that the bodies were mostly from Argent. Relena began to make her way over to me, but we both stopped when we heard Corporal Rayleigh's challenging roar. We glanced in her direction to see her facing off against a crocodile.
"You are the leader of these shifters? State your name!"
A brief silence followed before the scaled shifter answered. "You're obviously the leader of the pure-bloods. I am called Bone and I am the leader of Moonlight Circle. Your Argent Unit didn't do too well, did it?" He made a show of looking around at the bodies of the deceased soldiers of Corporal Rayleigh's organization.
"How DARE you insult my warriors?!" Corporal Rayleigh snarled and lunged at Bone.
The Moonlight leader chuckled. "You're in my trap now. Feel the pain of my Soul Piercer." He thrust a clawed hand out. My eyes widened. The bones in his hand fazed through the skin and grasped my commanding officer's furry chest. Instantly, her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed, dead.
*****
I smelled the falcon's fear, even though the boy hadn't shifted. I could see him trembling slightly and at that, I was pleased. With the majority of my organization still alive and only half-interested in the fate of the two surviving Argent members, I watched them flee. There were more important things to busy myself with now, like letting my own warriors heal. They hardly needed any encouragement from me to start feeding on the dead pure-bloods, so I wandered through the battlefield.
Having mentally done a head count earlier, I knew I was down at least three soldiers. Then, I found their bodies. They were covered in claw marks, with one of them having lost an ear. The second died eliminating a pure-blood werelynx. I had never taken the time to personally know these brave fighters, but they'd done a marvellous job in taking down almost all of Argent Unit.
What my minions didn't know was that I had a dark secret. The past was difficult to forget, but the truth that I had once been a pure-blood would certainly not leave my mind. It was the night of my seventeenth birthday. I'd been sick for a number of weeks, and my pure-blood parents weren't able to determine the reason of my illness. Lying weakly in bed, my immune system wasn't capable of fighting off the infection that corrupted my DNA even more. After doing some research into the virus, the doctors labelled it the PBE4 bug.
The PBE4 bug was quite proficient in altering the DNA of a pure-blood to make them evil. In most cases, a shifter with the bug often destroyed their homes and killed their parents. I know, because the virus remains in my blood, and I did those things. If the disease didn't have a malicious nature and if I'd never contracted it, I probably would still be a pure-blood. However, the illness is cruel, and I did fall sick. Frequently, I've wished I could turn back time and try life's challenges again, but I don't think I'll be that lucky.
*****
It's been over two decades since the battle; my hair, now grey, has become nothing more than a measurement of these times. Relena and I had found an abandoned martial arts centre. With some modifying, it doubled as a medical wing. Consumed with guilt, I stayed away while Argent Unit rebuilt itself. Their new leader had some knowledge of the previous Moonlight Circle, and that's the way I wanted it to stay. Major Albin, a werehorse, knew about the fact that Relena and I were the two surviving members of what the shifters now call the War of Broken Wings.
At the moment, however, I stood within the boundaries of Laphoon — the capital of wind elementalists. I had taken it upon myself to watch over a shifter family, the Windclaws, whose shifted forms were cheetahs. The Windclaws had recently welcomed into the world their daughter, Kina. Standing by my side as we watched protectively from a distance was five-year-old Ramirez Rawlson. Dressed in a black t-shirt and orange shorts, the child with messy black hair was the face of innocence. He also had tanned skin and a chipped top tooth from where he'd fallen down. Despite his young age and as an order from Argent, Ramirez was obligated to be my student. From me, as I was a multitalented elementalist, he would learn all of the techniques needed to be a master earth magician.
A/N: The Past Is Only Pages is influenced by what happens before Plea for the Reaper. A big thankies goes out to Sgt Shock for providing the title of my fic and JX Valentine for her beta-ing.
Disclaimer: This original story, "The Past Is Only Pages", is rated M for mild language, deaths and vague nudity when shifting.
*****
THE PAST IS ONLY PAGES
A/N: A very BIG thankies goes out to Polursine for helping out with Bone's appearance.
Pere's POV
Forty-two years before the events of Plea for the Reaper...
My name is Pere and I am eighteen-years-old. I am of average height for an eighteen-year-old, and I have bluish-grey hair and bright blue eyes.
I was born a shape-shifter; my form is a peregrine falcon. Our ability to adapt to new environments, jealousy and hatred against us because ordinary humans view us as freaks is what we have to endure. These are also the reasons why they hunt us in an attempt to reduce our numbers.
My homeland of Zardantor is separated by a massive valley path. Both groups of shifters, good and bad, know this no man's land as the Cursed Darkness. The difference between us and the evil ones is they prefer to stay in their animal forms.
At this point in my life, I was currently serving under Corporal Rayleigh. Thirty one-year-old Corporal Rayleigh was my superior in the armed forces of Zardantor. Her striking blonde hair and fierce emerald eyes were reminiscent of her viciousness when she shifted to her jaguar form. As she looked at Relena and myself while giving the order to go out on a training exercise, Corporal Rayleigh's eyes flashed.
Relena was only a couple of years older than me. Blind from birth, Relena used the air currents to see locations and other beings. She was tall for a twenty-year-old and had elf-like ears.
While it was good to be out of the confines of the ever-so-important army base, I was a bit nervous about facing Relena in a work out. She had this way of reading other peoples' minds, even though she wasn't aware of doing it, to implement a countermove.
"We better get started, Relena," I said to her from across the vast meadow. "Otherwise, Corporal Rayleigh will be annoyed when she realizes we haven't done anything."
Relena was the sort of shifter who made jokes about our superior officers. When she didn't make a joke about Rayleigh, I immediately knew something was wrong. "Relena, what is it?" I questioned as I moved to my companion's side in an instant. That was one advantage of having the lightning-like reflexes of one of the human world's fastest creatures.
"The peace," was all that she said at first.
We were in a peaceful time, but her comment concerned me when her voice wavered. "Relena, what is it? What do you know?" I asked again. If Relena knew something was going to happen to the peace, then I wanted to know as soon as possible. Actually, I wanted to know now, but I had to wait for Relena to reveal what she knew.
She looked at me with her sightless eyes. "The peace is not going to last much longer. There will be a slaughter, and two organizations will be formed on the basis of loyalty and deceit."
I was stunned into silence. I truly didn't know what to say. There was one thing I knew, though. Most of the time, Relena's predictions turned out to be true. Her on-again, off-again clairvoyant ability came in handy when it worked. The upside of this was we didn't have to do our training, and the downside was we had to tell Corporal Rayleigh without delay. As we steadily made our way back to the base, I supported my friend and pondered upon what her message meant.
After hearing the news from Relena, Corporal Rayleigh's familiar voice of authority shouted out to all of the shifters, which caused us to fall silent. "Listen up, team!" she said.
We formed a line and we placed our right arms across our chest. Our left arms went up near our heads in the traditional saluting fashion.
"At ease, everyone," she commanded. We put our arms by our sides and waited expectantly. "As I'm sure all of you know, a few minutes ago we received word that the peace that has flourished in Zardantor for so long will end. We may be fighting our brethren, but we are not fighting our siblings! No true siblings of ours would wish to start this war! So we, as Argent Unit, must fight for our freedom!"
"Zardantor has been free for as long as I can remember," I growled.
Corporal Rayleigh carried on with the rest of her speech about how we would prepare at 0700 to go to war against our misguided brethren. It was protracted and mind-numbing. I was starting to fall asleep. The Corporal wrapped up her battle declaration and let everyone go to bed.
*****
Bone's POV
Ordinary people viewed us as "half-breeds undeserving of the title of human" — that is, children who had been born from parents who were pure-blood shifters. And then, of course, there were the rogues and evil ones. Rogues usually constituted humans who had been turned by the malice of another shifter. Evil ones were those shifters who were arrogant enough to believe that their human form was the weaker body.
I stood, watching my cronies challenge each other in realistic battles. Animalistic wrestling was one of the favourite past-times my minions involved themselves in. A couple of them were already covered in blood and the chest of a werebadger had been opened. At over six feet in height, I didn't really care if anyone saw me in all of my scaled glory. Menacing crimson eyes stared at my surroundings.
"Isn't it time we actually did something, boss?" A werebull bellowed in complaint. Werebulls were known for their severe impatience and this one was a fine example of that. Ramos was a reddish bipedal Brahman. He had long horns and hoof-like hands. He stared at me, waiting for a response. Sensing his brown eyes on me, watching my every move, I turned slowly.
His companion, a werejackal, snorted. "Ramos, you're gonna get in trouble. Bone doesn't like it when any of us are impatient," he muttered under his breath. Brownish-black in colour, the shifter was two-legged like everyone else in my group. He was a jumpy creature, but he was willing enough to try and quieten Ramos. His fangs were always a deciding factor if he tussled with any of the pure-bloods.
I observed the jackal in a new light, looking thoughtful. He has some brains about him. What was his name again? Oh yes, Yuda. Well, it looks like Yuda just earned himself a promotion. "Yuda has a point, Ramos. I don't like impatience from my warriors. I am in control, so remember that. For your vice, you'll do sentry duty today!" My voice had a snappy, hateful tone when I spoke. "As for you, Yuda, I'd like you to come over here."
Instantly, the jackal froze, thinking he'd done something to irritate me. "What...? I haven't... I thought you were rousing on Ramos... Why me...?" Yuda stammered, clearly intimidated by my features.
A werehyena burst out laughing. A hunched back and orangeish fur with black spots certainly set Kaden apart from the rest of my cronies. He was a hyena through and through. Once he started laughing, there was generally no stopping him. "I never thought I'd live to see Yuda shaking in his fur... Hehehe."
"HEY! YOU SHUT UP!" the other carnivore shouted back.
My tolerance for infighting was like walking on a knife's edge. I threw back my head and slammed my two-metre tail into the ground. "ENOUGH!" I roared. "Kaden, control your hyena instincts, please. Yuda, you haven't done anything wrong. Just come over here so I can talk to you about your promotion."
Silence cut through the group like a breeze on the worst winter's day. "Promotion?" Yuda questioned, looking confused. "Me? Why?"
"Because you alone had the brains to try and quieten Ramos," I explained. "If you accept, you'll be head of the warriors. If you decline, then I'll leave you alone."
"Then I decline. I'd rather be left alone," the werejackal answered. "I'm sorry, Bone, but..."
I interrupted his sentence. "That's okay. It's fine by me." With the issue closed, I strode off, leaving the others still staring at me in confusion.
An hour later, a wereferret approached me, giggling madly. The white-furred Shaan was one of my best spies, despite his drinking problem. Being small enabled the ferret to slip into places where my bigger followers couldn't, and he labelled himself our intelligence officer. "Your Majesty, I have very important news."
I frowned at my minion, as I very much disapproved of his habit. "Shaan, you've been drinking again."
Stopping his ridiculous outburst, the ferret looked at me and waved paper in my face. I grabbed the paper and read it. It was an intelligence report, documented by none other than Shaan himself. Doubting the possibility of Shaan writing neatly, I was proven right when my eyes struggled to make out the sloppily scrawled words. In the end, I shoved the paper back at Shaan and growled at him to read it out himself.
"It says at 2025 this evening, the pure-blood shifters formed the organization known as Argent Unit after hearing that the peace in Zardantor would end. And that's coming from a blind twenty-year-old. So, Your Majesty, what are we going to do in response?"
I growled again, louder this time. "Firstly, I want you to stop calling me Your Majesty. You only do that when you're drunk, but besides that, it's detrimental to my position. Stop drinking is number two on the list. Thirdly, inform anyone who's still awake to prepare themselves for tomorrow's war. And fourthly, I now declare us to be known as Moonlight Circle!"
*****
Pere's POV
The next morning...
"Since our shifter brethren have declared this war, which Relena had the foresight to see, we will stay here and they can bring the battle to us!" Corporal Rayleigh yelled firmly. "Remember, shifting is prohibited unless you're injured!"
It was basic knowledge among our kind that when we went into battle, we had to remain in our human forms unless we were wounded. Once we were injured, it was our law that we had to shift in order to try and regain the advantage. Our misguided brethren, on the other hand, were already in their shifted forms. This would make the war harder, as it was humans fighting against animals. Not to mention that some of the evil ones had specialized magic on their side.
I turned to face Relena, who had been beside me a couple of minutes ago, only to find she wasn't there anymore. Concerned, my head whipped around as I looked for her. My azure eyes spotted her crouching by a wall of the base. Moving quickly, I made my way over to her. Looking at her shaking figure, I had a bad feeling she'd had another prediction. "Relena, is it worse this time?" I asked softly.
"Most of our forces will be wiped out," she whispered, only loud enough for me to hear. "Pere, we have to get out of here."
I stared at her, shocked at her second revelation. My mind went blank as I processed her words. Most of our forces would be wiped out. There was no doubt about it. It was true. But we couldn't leave, not then. Corporal Rayleigh would see that as desertion and she would punish us.
"Less thinking, you two, and more focus! Hostile shifters approaching!" Corporal Rayleigh barked. She apparently read our expressions but totally got the message wrong. We nodded and tensed our muscles.
As they approached us, nine of the evil ones charged with clawed hands ready, fangs bared and horns sharpened. All that the others could do was move into a tae kwon do stance. Even we copied them.
The werebull drove his horn into the nearest shifter's heart, killing him instantly. A group of the werebull's companions swarmed on a quartet of our companions. Two of the evil ones next to Corporal Rayleigh were taken down instantly. I didn't know how, but I just knew that they weren't there anymore.
To my left came the unmistakable flash of ivory fangs. I evaded, but I could my enemy's fangs come close to ripping the left side of my face away. A very small trickle of blood oozed down my forehead and dripped along my face.
Lingering in the exact same spot, I was horror-struck. My worst fear had almost become reality. This incident made me feel relief from surviving and extreme fright for the shock that I might not be so lucky next time.
All that I could see was a blurred mess of orange, black, mottled green and tan with the occasional white. I had no idea what to do, so I looked around me. The grass had become littered with freshly fallen bodies of shifters, both good and bad. A new shifter would fall every five or ten seconds, injured or deceased. My next instinct was to look for the owner of the ivory fangs in the middle of all this pandemonium. I glanced to my right and saw the shifter, a werefox, finishing off a ginger-coloured werecat. Staring blankly at the werecat's twisted body, I recognized it as Faith. No, no, no! Faith trusted me. I promised last night to protect her. What have I done? He seemed to be a member of the evil ones' suicide unit — picking off our own shifters with well aimed, crushing blows — even though he was looking worse for wear himself. My first thought was, "Better avoid him." So I did. I made erratic, twisting manoeuvres as he came at me. I put myself closer to the fight, near my companions, so that he would stop targeting me for fear of striking his own.
My dread hung about, however. There were thrusts of clawed hands, horns, fangs and human flesh in every direction. There was an evil shifter in front of me all of a sudden. Fangs bore down on me, which I had to dodge and parry with my vulnerable skin. I noticed Corporal Rayleigh snap the neck of my assailant with the paw-like hands of her jaguar body. Blood flowed steadily from gashes on her arms. I was still shocked from seeing Faith be killed, but I managed to return the sisterly nod Corporal Rayleigh promptly gave. She ended the lives of two more evil ones at the same time with a combination of her fangs and claws before I lost track of her in the bustling activity. There was an obvious reason why she was Argent Unit's leader.
The werehyena burst through a deceased group of my Argent companions, jerking his head from side to side, eliminating any other pure-bloods with his sharp teeth. I watched hopelessly as the fangs or horns of various other evil ones found their mark in the flesh of their victims. Suddenly, the hawk form of an Argent shifter was frozen in mid-fight by ice-based magic. Everything seemed to go downhill from here, as the werebull's horn was thrust at the ice. An evil one using the fire element melted the ice so that his companion's horn could strike home, which was the hawk's heart. Because of the horn sticking out of his chest, my now dead friend was in a position that would have been uncomfortable if he were still alive.
I looked around for Relena, taken aback by the ferocity of the war the evil ones had initiated. She was in a corner, in her shifted form, with her left ear half hanging. It was clear to see it had been damaged. I felt nauseous when I realized Moonlight Circle had hardly any dead and that the bodies were mostly from Argent. Relena began to make her way over to me, but we both stopped when we heard Corporal Rayleigh's challenging roar. We glanced in her direction to see her facing off against a crocodile.
"You are the leader of these shifters? State your name!"
A brief silence followed before the scaled shifter answered. "You're obviously the leader of the pure-bloods. I am called Bone and I am the leader of Moonlight Circle. Your Argent Unit didn't do too well, did it?" He made a show of looking around at the bodies of the deceased soldiers of Corporal Rayleigh's organization.
"How DARE you insult my warriors?!" Corporal Rayleigh snarled and lunged at Bone.
The Moonlight leader chuckled. "You're in my trap now. Feel the pain of my Soul Piercer." He thrust a clawed hand out. My eyes widened. The bones in his hand fazed through the skin and grasped my commanding officer's furry chest. Instantly, her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed, dead.
*****
Bone's POV
I smelled the falcon's fear, even though the boy hadn't shifted. I could see him trembling slightly and at that, I was pleased. With the majority of my organization still alive and only half-interested in the fate of the two surviving Argent members, I watched them flee. There were more important things to busy myself with now, like letting my own warriors heal. They hardly needed any encouragement from me to start feeding on the dead pure-bloods, so I wandered through the battlefield.
Having mentally done a head count earlier, I knew I was down at least three soldiers. Then, I found their bodies. They were covered in claw marks, with one of them having lost an ear. The second died eliminating a pure-blood werelynx. I had never taken the time to personally know these brave fighters, but they'd done a marvellous job in taking down almost all of Argent Unit.
What my minions didn't know was that I had a dark secret. The past was difficult to forget, but the truth that I had once been a pure-blood would certainly not leave my mind. It was the night of my seventeenth birthday. I'd been sick for a number of weeks, and my pure-blood parents weren't able to determine the reason of my illness. Lying weakly in bed, my immune system wasn't capable of fighting off the infection that corrupted my DNA even more. After doing some research into the virus, the doctors labelled it the PBE4 bug.
The PBE4 bug was quite proficient in altering the DNA of a pure-blood to make them evil. In most cases, a shifter with the bug often destroyed their homes and killed their parents. I know, because the virus remains in my blood, and I did those things. If the disease didn't have a malicious nature and if I'd never contracted it, I probably would still be a pure-blood. However, the illness is cruel, and I did fall sick. Frequently, I've wished I could turn back time and try life's challenges again, but I don't think I'll be that lucky.
*****
Pere's POV
It's been over two decades since the battle; my hair, now grey, has become nothing more than a measurement of these times. Relena and I had found an abandoned martial arts centre. With some modifying, it doubled as a medical wing. Consumed with guilt, I stayed away while Argent Unit rebuilt itself. Their new leader had some knowledge of the previous Moonlight Circle, and that's the way I wanted it to stay. Major Albin, a werehorse, knew about the fact that Relena and I were the two surviving members of what the shifters now call the War of Broken Wings.
At the moment, however, I stood within the boundaries of Laphoon — the capital of wind elementalists. I had taken it upon myself to watch over a shifter family, the Windclaws, whose shifted forms were cheetahs. The Windclaws had recently welcomed into the world their daughter, Kina. Standing by my side as we watched protectively from a distance was five-year-old Ramirez Rawlson. Dressed in a black t-shirt and orange shorts, the child with messy black hair was the face of innocence. He also had tanned skin and a chipped top tooth from where he'd fallen down. Despite his young age and as an order from Argent, Ramirez was obligated to be my student. From me, as I was a multitalented elementalist, he would learn all of the techniques needed to be a master earth magician.
