“She's been gone for a while now...do you think everything’s okay?” Riku asked the others. Night had fallen and hours had passed with no sign of Leanne. A small campfire was burning, and the small group of four gathered around it.
“Well, maybe she's found a good source of information so she's trying to learn as much as she can,” Luna replied.
“I don’t know, something doesn’t seem right,” Riku disagreed. He glanced at Sieve and she nodded in agreement. They sat in silence for a few minutes, pondering over the subject, when Riku got up suddenly. “Guys, put out the fire,” he commanded. “We're going to rescue Leanne.” Sieve and Nero were about to silence the fire until Luna stood up in defiance.
“Wait...rescue? How do you know she's in trouble?” She countered stubbornly.
“I just know,” Riku said, glancing down for a moment. He looked back up and said to Sieve and Nero, “now move it!” Sieve and Nero did as he said, but Luna stood glued to one spot. She crossed her arms and gave a suspicious look at Riku.
“If we go in the city and are spotted, alerting the whole place of our presence, then what?” She questioned. Riku sighed, not in the mood to argue.
“If we do get attacked, then we'll just fight our way to her.”
“Do you even know how many cats live in Nahai? We'd get ourselves killed!”
“Look, Luna-”
“No, you look. What if she's perfectly fine and we barge in and blow her cover?”
“No, that won't happen. I know that she-”
“I’m her sister! Her twin sister! If I don’t think she's in trouble then how can you?!”
“I made a mistake, okay?!” Riku shouted at Luna. She raised an eyebrow at him. “I forgot something important earlier and now she's most likely in terrible danger...”
“Well well well, looks like Mr. perfect isn’t so perfect after all,” Luna mocked. Riku sighed again, too angry to respond, fearing he may say something unintelligent. Luna put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, we'll save her,” she said sincerely. “Even though she's in danger because you're dumb.”
“Strangely, that makes me feel a bit better.”
• • •
“This place is huge. Knowing her, maybe she just got lost,” Luna said, marveling at the sight of the city. But something was amiss, for even at night one would expect the city to be flooding with people, but not a soul was to be seen. Noticing this, Luna admitted, “Guess you were right Riku. Something really is wrong, and it probably has to do with Leanne.”
Riku didn’t answer, not really hearing her, and kept on walking, not caring who was right or wrong at the moment, only caring of Leanne's safety. They traveled around Nahai, searching for someone to interrogate, until they came to be in front of a colosseum where a single cat guard in armor stood. The guard noticed the group of wolves and panicked, glancing left and right for help, but he quickly saw that he was the only one there.
“Workin' the night shift eh? That's a lonely life to live my friend,” Nero said to the guard, who pulled out a sword and started to tremble. They walked closer to him.
“S-stay back,” the guard commanded. They ignored him and kept on creeping closer, the guard shaking more and more with each step that brought the wolves nearer to him. Luna calmly pushed his sword out of his way with a sway of her hand and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, pushing him against the wall. The guard dropped his sword in fear.
“Whats going on? Why is there no one in the city? Luna asked menacingly.
“Um..w-well...you see...” he replied, shaking and stuttering. He didn’t continue his sentence and so Luna slammed him into the wall, which got him talking again. “E-everyone who’s anyone with a t-taste for excitement is in this colosseum here,” the guard replied. “There is a death match going on between a wolf n-nagual we found roaming the city s-streets and three of our strongest men. I hear that the wolf just got knocked out and our champ is about to deliver t-the final blow,” he informed us.
“Well, we cant have that, now can we?” Riku, Nero, and Sieve headed inside the colosseum. “Thanks..” Luna said and then knocked the guard out by slamming his head hard against the wall. She quickly ran inside to catch up with the others.
What the group saw was devastating. Leanne lay unconscious on the ground in her human form, most likely she had been forced into her human form due to great stress on her wolf form. Blood covered both her and the ground she lay on, and her clothes were torn to shreds.
A few feet away from Leanne stood the two leopards, and almost directly above her stood a giant tiger. All three cats were unscathed, except for a long scratch that stretched down its back. The tiger was seething with anger, glaring down at Leanne with a deathly stare.
Riku, Nero, and Luna surrounded Leanne, the tiger backing off just a bit as they did. Riku picked her up gently and held her close to him in his arms, her blood dripping on him. The tiger roared ferociously at him, angered that its kill was being taken from it. Riku glowered back at the tiger and their eyes locked for a mo
ment before he glanced down at Leanne.
“Come on, lets get her back home,” Riku told the others. They all ran out of the colosseum, and a growl echoed behind them. “Damn! Its following us. But it wouldn’t be safe to stop right in the middle of the city to fight it off. We'd better just keep going,” Riku thought, and the group kept running out of the city, past the outskirts, and into the plain that divided cat territory from wolf territory, all while the tiger was chasing at their heels.
Riku quickly stopped and turned around. “Hold the tiger off,” he told the three, who had also stopped when Riku had, nearly bumping into him. “But don’t get hurt in the process, we just need a diversion so I can get away with Leanne safely.”
“You got it,” Luna replied while saluting. The three shifted and turned around to face the tiger and Riku started running again in the direction of Soule. The tiger let out another roar behind him, and it tried to follow, but was blocked by his friends, who attacked the tiger when he tried to stride past them.
“You aren’t getting away that easily big guy,” Nero growled at the tiger. He growled back, and they clashed in a three-against-one battle. It was a mismatched fight, but the strength of the wolves equaled that of the tigers.
Riku continued running, carefully guarding the hurt Leanne. “How could we have let her go?” He thought to himself regrettably. “Her, of all people. I told her not to do anything reckless, yet here she is, getting herself half-killed.” Riku looked down at Leanne, wishing he could turn back time so he could have become the spy instead and ended up as the one hurt. “But then again, this was my idea. I really should've been more considerate of her. I’m such a fool...I wonder if she'll ever forgive me...”
He looked up and there stood Howling Falls, safety. He entered through the tunnel, but before he was able to get into the quarters his name was called out from behind him. He turned around to find Sieve, Nero, and Luna all running toward him. They stopped in front of him, all panting and scratched up, but other than that they were fine.
“So did you make sure he didn’t follow us?” Riku asked.
“Hah! Follow us?! We payed him back double for what he did to Lee!” Luna declared, catching her breath.
“I knew I could count on you guys,” Riku replied with a smile that quickly faded after he looked down back at Leanne and then back to the quarters. “We should hurry back to her room.”
They all hurried into the quarters. Nero went back into his room with a quick goodbye and wave of his hand, feeling beat from the days battle, while the rest all filed into Leanne and Luna's room. Riku set Leanne down gently on her bed.
