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Chapter Four

Dante, Erebosian Wolf

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"When life pushes you down, get up and punch it back in the face."

--Yours truly

Markus's body felt as if it had been melted, vaporized, then solidified a thousand times over as the three Astorians suddenly appeared in what appeared to be a grassy field, out in the middle of nowhere. The afternoon sun beat down upon them as they all collapsed into the grass, panting.

Markus groaned and clutched at his stomach, feeling nauseous, the stress that his body had been feeling for the past few days almost getting to be too much for him.

Riskar was the first to stand, he swiftly put the device that he had held before in his pocket, folding it until it was only a small ball and tucking it away. He looked at his two fellow companions in the grass, and said,"We're out of danger, if Arron and Farinay succeeded they should be joining us in a few minutes".

Narr shakily got to his feet, stumbling over to Markus, he helped him to his feet. Markus shook his head, rubbing his temples with his paws,"What kind of world is this? And what were those flashes of light that Farinay and Arron kept using?!"

Riskar sighed, sitting down on a nearby tree stump he looked up to Markus,"This is basically the same world as was your world in the 1950's except, with rare, and hard to get bits of extremely advanced technology. Communism here has been reigning for several centuries, which slowed down technological advancement rates, as far as the regular people knew. People live in poverty here, except for those few that join The Cause, we can get better equipment from illegal and secret imports. But, as you saw a few minutes ago, we've got it dangerous. And as for those lights that Farinay used..." he trailed off, looking down at the grass, not meeting Markus in the eyes.

Narr picked up his sentence,"That, as much as you won't believe it, was magic."

Markus stared, open mawed at Narr, completely disbelieving. He slowly sank down and sat down on the grass. He looked up once more, saying,"But... Magic doesn't exist, it's not possible! How in the world can it be possible?!"

Sighing, Narr sat down beside Riskar, who ruffled his headfur in a brotherly manner. Narr glared at Riskar for a second before replying to Markus,"It's quite simple really, humans could never do it because it was too strenuous for them, and instead of practicing at it and getting better, sadly the abandoned the practice and it eventually disappeared altogether, but Astorians have the great ability of concentration. It's basically mind over matter, and it works, though it's extremely difficult. Arron and Farinay are the most skilled at it, Riskar here is our Mr. Gadget, and I'm just... Me... I tend to do a lot of physical combat. Farinay is by far the strongest here, and Arron's the most experienced fighter. We don't know your powers yet, though I think Arron has a theory or two."

Markus's head swam with more questions,"Magic?! Does this mean that all my fantasies about having magic powers that I've had ever since I could remember are possible?!" he thought to himself, as he looked down at himself, the list of possibilities formulating in his head as he fully took in his new body.

His fur shimmered gently in the sunlight, as his paws and feet paws looked the most animal like, yet they were all flexible like a humans, he tried flexing his paws, with a start, claws suddenly appeared. He looked the over, testing them on a nearby strand of grass, to his satisfaction, they deftly cut it into shreds. Flexing again to get rid of them, he looked over at his tail. He focused, and then almost with an instinctive kick his tail nerves sprung into action. What had before just been a limp appendage was now a gently swishing living part of him. He picked it up, and unable to restrain himself after all the stress he'd been having to deal with, hugged it, burying his muzzle into it.

After a minute he quickly glanced up, incredibly embarrassed to be doing what he was directly in front of the two Astorians. He noticed though that they weren't even paying attention to him, they were both looking off into the distance at some far point. Following their gaze, he saw that in the distance there was a small city, with tall apartment complexes and several large, grey buildings.

Narr spoke up in a low voice, not taking his eyes off the city,"We're waiting for them to come back from there, it doesn't usually take them so long..." Riskar stood up and began to pace, as Narr nervously fiddled with one of his tails.

Markus stayed where he was, so much had happened in just over an hour, he simply sat and thought over everything. Several hours passed, and Riskar's and Narr's irritation grew as fast as Markus's hunger. His stomach growled and he got off the ground, he was just about to voice up that they should probably seek shelter soon when Narr's voice cried out, Riskar looked to him questioningly, as Narr pointed excited in the direction of the city.

Riskar and Markus both looked to where he pointed and saw too figures. The darker one seemed to be leaning on the other, and limping. The three ran over, they saw Arron and Farinay, both looking as if they had a hell of a time. Cuts cowered them both, Arron seemed to be ok but Farinay looked terrible, his right leg had a large, and deep gash that bled profusely, as well as one of his wings being bent in an awkward position.

Riskar cried in concern,"What the hell happened?!" Arron looked up, his grey eyes filled with exhaustion as he replied,"They're dead, we lived, that's all, we need to rest for a while, and then decide our next course of action".

Riskar nodded, and gently led them over to the little clearing they had in the field. They laid Farinay down, who promptly fell asleep within a few minutes. Narr tended to his wounds as Riskar argued with Arron over his own wounds,"You need to be healed!" Riskar said, as Arron replied in an angry tone,"I'll be fine! Tend to Farinay, he's far more injured than I!"

While this happened Markus sat beside Farinay, and watched in fascination has seemingly out of nowhere, Narr summoned bandages with wrapped themselves around Farinay's wound, sealing them up and from the way Farinay's tail was puffed up in unpleasantness, disinfecting them as well.

Arron finally gave in and lay down beside Farinay as Riskar did the same to him. Within a few minutes Farinay was taken care of. and was dozing peacefully in the field as Arron paced back and forth, coincidentally in the same place that Riskar had been just a few minutes before.

His tail was strait and his ears pinned back as he nervously shuffled his wings. Throwing his paws up into the air in exasperation he cried,"What in the world are we going to do now?!" Speaking up, Narr said,"We could always go back to that abandoned building we kept as plan B."

Calming down a bit, Arron turned to Riskar with a questioningly looked on his muzzle, raising his eyebrow he said,"Can we teleport there?" Riskar took out the small ball and held it up, a small trail of smoke lead above it,"Fried, it'll need at least another 12 hours to cool down" he said.

Rolling his eyes to turned back to Narr,"It'll be too risky walking back to the city, they're on the look out for us!" Narr shot back,"Well do you have anything better planned for tonight!" Arron retorted back,"I'm sorry, but maybe if Riskar's gadgets actually worked-".

"SHUT UP! ALL OF YOU!" Farinay's voice came almost out of nowhere, everyone turned to see him sitting up and scowling at all of them,"Arguing isn't going to solve this! Our only option is to try and sneak back, I could do a night-stalker spell on all of us, and maybe then it would be easier. How does that sound?" Arron and Narr nodded slowly, as Riskar put away the odd little ball into his pocket again.

"Now, let's get going." Farinay gingerly got up to his feet, stretching his paws out like a cat he growled,"Come" he turned, and began limping back to the city, Narr quickly rushed forward and supported him, but Farinay shook him off as the rest of the group padded after them.

to be continued