THE PIT

SECTOR 3 AREA 9 TOWER 17

TELUNA

My vision twirled with darkness for a moment as the world seemed to spin. But the tough grip on my shoulder seemed to anchor me back to earth as Kodak gave me a bottle of blood. My exhaustion wasn't completely eliminated, but I felt better. Gus had already hurried down, seriously the kid was annoying.

Could he not do things with such single minded focus, he should be more like his brother and care about the people around him, of course I was not any better, but since I'm the victim here, I'm allowed to be a little selfish and self centered. I took short deep breaths and raised my head to see Kodak looking at me with worry.

"Are you okay? If you can't go on, you shou....."

"I'm fine Kodak. Let's go!" I interrupted

He nodded and we both sped towards the entrance of the tower. Gus worked fast, he had already grabbed their dead bodies, and dragged them towards the side of the tower and away from the view of the entrance.

Of course they were still exposed, but not where it would be an immediate threat. He gave each of us a gun, there were two more guns left, but he threw those aside.

Even with our strength and speed, carrying that much weight around would be pretty cumbersome when we're fighting. The only problem now however, has to be the fact that none of us knew how to use a gun, and all Gus had to say to that was.

"Figure it out."

Then he dived through the entrance. I gave Kodak an exasperated look before following Gus in with Kodak bringing up the rear. I raised the gun in front of me, blood pumping in anticipation as the feel of the cold metal in my palm gave my mind a clarity I've never experienced before.

We were in a hallway, our footfalls silent as the night, and our breathing almost nonexistent as we picked our way through. There was a door at the end, and we all crouched at it, and listened to what was beyond.

I could hear breathing, six sets. Four of those breaths were rather deep, they seemed to be coming from someone with a wider lung capacity than normal. And not just that, judging from it's steady movements, the people who this breathing pattern belonged to, were asleep.

The other two were having a conversation about colors of underwear, making sure to keep their voices barely above a whisper so that the others won't wake up.

But there was something peculiar about the remaining two guards, their voices were raspy, with a hiss like tremble to it. Whatever they were, they were most definitely not werewolves.

I moved my nose closer towards the door, and sniffed deeply, apart from the smell of old wood, oil, sweat, and body odour, the people talking had a leathery scent coming from their body, and not the kind you would get from a well designed jacket, but rather the one you would get from an animal's skin.

"There are four sleeping werewolves, and two members of an unknown race beyond the door. We've not been discovered yet, so maybe we should still go on as silently as possible. Teluna, you're up. Clear out the room."

Gus said to me through his telepathy. I furrowed my eyebrow in annoyance as I looked at him and asked in a fierce whisper.

"Who died and made you leader?" he looked me straight in the eye and said.

"Asha."

I couldn't refute that, Asha and Asare did put him in charge of the operation. I took a deep breath and plunged into the shadow realm.

The sensation of going in was like falling into a lake of freezing cold water, and every part of your body would feel as if it was freezing for a moment before you got accustomed to it. I heard a deep breath behind me, I didn't have to turn around to know that it was Lowen standing me.

The Shadow Lion followed me everywhere I went in the shadow realm, it made summoning him easy. The shadow realm was a whole other world, having it's own creatures, mountains, cities, and races. But it was a place where death came as swift as the wind, and all traces of you would be lost forever.

It's why a shadow beast familiar is required, every shadower vampire is given one the moment they first enter the shadow realm. They serve as the protectors of your shadow, and navigators through this land of grey and cold darkness.

When a person is in the shadow realm, his vision is split, in a manner of speaking. He or she would have a perception of the waking world, allowing them navigate the shadow realm, and allowing them to move to their intended location almost instantaneously, because the shadow realm, reacted to the thoughts of the shadower.

Your destination only has to be thought of, and the next time you jump out, you'll be right where you want to be. And time in the shadow realm was four times faster than normal. I turned around and gave Lowen a soft pat on the snout, then I jumped out.

Coming out just behind what I could only say was a lizard man. The perception of the real world from the shadow realm was not a clear picture, to be a little astute, it would be like how a snake or lizard see and sense things through heat, or a wolf through smell.

It was like an x-ray vision of sorts, so while I knew there were two people waiting here, in deep discussion, I had no idea 'what' they were. Their appearance startled me, and I almost didn't react on time.

But I moved, I had a skill that would be considered overkill at a time like this, but the [Lance Of Darkness] was a sure fire way to get rid of them, and it was incredibly silent. I've used it before in the black district when I had to save Kael the first time we went hunting.

To be honest that seems like a lifetime ago, but this skill has had time to improve a lot. I felt the cold energy of darkness gathering in my right hand, there was a slight itch just before I completely activated the skill and sent it through the startled neck of both lizard men.

The five meter long lance that looked more like an elaborate arrow head than a lance, cut of their neck, leaving behind wounds that have been frozen solid by ice. It would come as a surprise to many, but darkness is cold, light is warm.

Those two elements are part of a class of element that were called concept elements. There was no physical representation of them, so they take on the properties of the closet environmental change their presence and existence can cause.

Which is cold when it's dark, and hot when it's light. I was told there was more to it, something about a yin yang principle, but for now this was all my mother had taught me since we reunited.

I moved quickly to grab their bodies, preventing them from falling over and alerting the sleeping werewolves. But in my haste I jostled their bodies a bit, and their heads slid off their frozen necks.

I quickly angled myself and used my feet to catch one of the heads, but I was too late in catching the other one as it fell to the ground and smashed into pieces of frozen lizard skull and brain. One of the werewolves snorted and jolted up awake.

I could swear I felt my heart skip a beat, which was weird, considering my heart has never beat since I was born, not even once. In fact i don't know what it feels like to have a beating heart, but at this moment I think I had an idea of it. Or it could have been just my imagination as fear jolted through me.

Was I scared of the werewolves? Yes, yes I was. This particular species have been the prime force behind the torture of the vampires for millennia, they were not sealed, and had access to their abilities for a much longer time than anyone of us.

They were better trained and equipped, without a doubt, we're at a disadvantage in a fight against them. The werewolf looked at me, then looked at the headless body in my hands. He blinked and yawned and scratched his scruffy hair.

And all I could do was stand there frozen as I watched him. Then he smiled at me, then turned himself to find a better position, then laid down on the bunk bed he was on, snoring away the moment his head hit the pillow. Okay.....what the hell just happened? I was so dumbstruck with surprise I couldn't act until I heard Gus's voice in my head.

"What are you standing still for? Hurry up!"

I wanted to snap at him, but I kept my mouth shut and placed the dead lizard men back on the table that they had been discussing and died on. I raised the head on my foot, and tried to return it to its rightful body. But I didn't know which one the head belonged to, they looked so similar with their scaled skin, snouts, yellow eyes and ferocious looking fangs.

So I did the next best thing, I leaned both headless bodies together, making sure their necks were touching, then placed the head on both stumps. At least this way they can both share the head and no one had to be left out.

Then I turned towards the bunk beds where the four werewolves were sleeping, I created two [Lance Of Darkness] and let it drop from above them, spearing them through the head. The lance was long enough to go through the first werewolf on the top bunk, to the second on the bottom bunk, so in this fashion, all four werewolves died in their sleep, painlessly.

And to be honest silent killings weren't my style, I had fashioned myself an assassin before, but I rather be a berserker or something. But assassin was my class, so I had to get familiar with it.

But something didn't make sense, weren't they supposed to be five werewolves on patrol. We watched five walk into the tower when the time came to exchange the guard, but why was I only seeing four.

I barely had time to react when I heard a vicious snarl behind me, I turned in time to see a glint of fangs and claws as a two meter tall wolf jumped out of nowhere, jaws open wide and aiming at my throat.

I froze, the speed at which he was moving was way to fast for me to follow, I had heard rumors that werewolves were faster than vampires, but I didn't believe it. Seems to me that the rumors where true, and I was about to be slaughtered for my negligence.

But before I could say good bye to this world, the werewolf froze in mid air and crashed to the ground.

The door to the entrance of the tower opened, and Kodak came in first followed closely by Gus. Kodak had his arms out stretched towards the wolf in what seems to be a choke hold. He was perspiring greatly as his whole was drenched with sweat. Whatever it is he was doing, it was taking a lot out of him.

I saw him strain and heard the wolf whimper in pain accordingly, then the wolf fell stiff, or it was more like all four of it's limbs were held captive as the rest of its body trashed erratically. Five minutes later the wolf stopped moving, I couldn't even hear his heart beat.

I watched as fur began to receive, and hind legs became straight legs as the transformation reversed and what was left was a normal looking man. Blood leaked out of his nose and mouth, and his chest and neck seemed a little swollen.

I looked at Kodak who was hunched over and trying to catch his breath, I was shocked. I wouldn't admit it, but I always thought Kodak was the weakest of all the people first unsealed. I thought he was too soft and kind, he did not smile a lot, but he took care of everybody like an elder brother.

Right here on the floor was a fully transformed werewolf. Werewolves had three transformation phases, the first is where their normal form will exhibit wolf like traits, like claws, elongated fangs, and longer ears.

The second phase is when they transform into a full fledged bipedal wolf man or woman, there's nothing human about them at this point, just a wolf that moved like a human. And then the final phase, the phase only Alphas or talented beta's could access.

The full werewolf form that's only available once ever two full moons for weak betas werewolves. An alpha was dead, something that I was not so sure I could beat since Alphas had strength almost equal to an elder, and Kodak just killed one by making it choke on his own blood.

"Damn!"