The Forgotten Zodiac

"Wolves?" Werr repeated, blinking in surprise.

"Oh, no! The wolves might be attacking him or something!" Airlia jumped up, fear shining in her eyes. "We have to go find him, he could be hurt or something! Or like Werr said, soldiers! Soldiers caught him! This is very, very bad..." She chewed on her lip nervously.

"Yes, wolves." Welk said, then blinked as Airlia freaked out. "Woah, woah! Hold on a second!" he yelped, waving his arms around to get her attention. "I'm pretty sure there's no soldiers in the forest this late at night, and if I know Cynyr, he wouldn't get hurt by mere wolves." He flicked his tail around for a moment, then said "Well, I should probably go get him. He's taking this way too far..." He started walking in the direction Cynyr had disappeared in.

Airlia took in a deep breath, calming herself down. She started hovering again, not wanting to damage her barefoot feet, and followed Welk. She was wringing her hands nervously, not liking the idea of wolves one bit.

Werr stomped out what was left of the fire and followed as well, curious as to what they were going to do should they be unable to find Cynyr.

They soon encountered a shallow river, with a huge rocky bluff on the other side. "Cynyr!" Welk shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth and calling for his adopted brother. "Where are you? Hellooooooo?" He glanced around, but didn't see the other half-cat anywhere. "Cynyr?" he called again, but got no answer. He frowned and flicked his tail a few times, then stalked forward and transformed into a cat, starting to sniff around and try to pick up Cynyr's scent. He sighed deeply after a moment, then said "He crossed the river a while ago. Come on." He trotted forward and waded into the water, which came up to his chin in the deepest part.

Airlia hovered over the water easily, leaving Werr to wade through, holding his bag above the water. He was immediately cold as soon as he climbed out; he knew full well that he could very possibly catch hypothermia, if he didn't dry out or change into dry clothes soon. He ignored that fact, focusing on calling for Cynyr along with Welk.

Airlia was starting to panic again, trembling slightly as she flew after Welk. "Master, please don't be captured or attacked or hurt or anything!" She called, worry and fear obvious in her voice,

Welk shook the water out of his coat, then froze as a faint burst of sound suddenly came to his ears. It sounded light a crackle of lightening, but more windy. Realization sunk in, and the cat turned around and ran over to Werr. "Come on, I know where he is." he said, running around behind Werr. He ducked his head and pushed under the boy's legs, and in an instant, Werr was sitting on his back. The cat barely gave the boy a chance to hold on. He took off, cantering across the ground. His ears were back, but he didn't seem in a huge hurry to get there, so whatever it was probably wasn't that bad. But they couldn't be sure.

Werr let out a yelp of surprise and clung to Welk's wet fur, Airlia flying after them with all due haste. "What's going on?" Werr asked, holding on for dear life.

"I heard something!" Airlia flew ahead slightly, desperate to find her 'master' again.

"That idiot." Welk growled, leaping over a fallen tree. "He should know better." They traveled for only a few minutes, the strange sound getting louder and louder as they got closer and closer. Soon, they found their friend.

Cynyr was standing in a clearing near one side of the huge rock bluff, panting. He was sweating and covered in a thin layer of dust, but that wasn't the thing that shocked them the most.

The fact that giant hole had been blasted right into the rocky side of the bluff was a little more shocking.

The half-cat had been out here training and developing his powers the entire time, and he was now exhausted. He had just started up another blast when they rounded the corner, and he let it loose at the rock side. The noise was nearly deafening, and the gust of wind that shot from the half-cat's hands was the biggest blast they had ever seen. It tore a hole the size of two elephants open in the rock side, blasting chunks of rock in all directions. Once the blast was over and the dust cleared, they saw that Cynyr had collapsed into a sitting position on the ground, panting hard. His bound tail was laying stiffly behind him, and he had bent his legs up to rest his arms on them.

"Master! Did you do that?" Airlia flew ahead, landing lightly next to him. "How wonderful! To think that you can do this much already...this is incredible!" She looked at the destruction happily, quite obviously pleased. "And to think, with my help, it'll be twice as powerful!" She said, kneeling next to him with a big smile on her face.

"Jeez..." Werr shook his head, letting out a sigh. He vaguely realized that all the noise would likely alert someone or something to their presence, but he ignored that fact for now. "What are you talking about, Airlia?" The angelic girl, however, was ignoring him completely.

Welk stalked forward, not stopping to let Werr off. "You idiot!" he shouted at Cynyr, stopping in front of the black-haired half-cat. "You're always telling me not to do loud or big things at night or during crisis times, yet here you are, making a beacon of your location for the whole forest to see!"

Cynyr's ears were already flat against his head from training so much, and he growled slightly when Welk spoke. "Shut up." he hissed, standing up woozily. "I can do whatever I want, and you can't order me around." He moved to create another spell, but before he could, Welk sat down and let Werr fall off backwards, then jumped forward and tackled the other half-cat to the ground. "Don't tell me to shut up! That's what I tell you." Welk said.

"Get off of me!" Cynyr shouted, and within second, both half-cats were in animal form and fighting like...cats. Big, ferocious, dangerous, cats.

Airlia backed up several paces, then hid behind a tree, covering her ears and shutting her eyes tight, wrapping her wings around herself protectively. Master was clearly very mad...

"Wha--guys, cut it out!" Werr tried to say, but they were being much too loud for normal talking. "Stop it! Are we not on the same team, here?!" He shouted at them, surprisingly loudly considering his usually quiet tone. "Stop fighting! You're going to hurt each other!"

((Feel free to hurt him. -evil giggles-))

((That's mean! D: ))

Cynyr and Welk either ignored him or couldn't hear him, and they continued to fight. Welk was easily starting to win over the panther, since Cynyr was exhausted from training so long, but Cynyr wasn't about to go down without putting up a fight. They snarled and growled and screeched at each other, sounding for all the world like they were fighting enemies. Welk suddenly kicked out hard at his brother right when Cynyr swung a heavy paw out at him, and the kick caused his blow to go wide. His claws hit Werr instead, tearing easily through his skin on the right side of his face. It left several deep, bleeding trenches across his cheek.

((Yuss. ouo))

Werr was knocked back by the attack, letting out a cry of pain as he fell backwards. He put his hand up to his face, feeling the blood now dripping from the grooves on his face. They stung as he touched them, bringing hurt tears to his eyes, but he quickly brushed them away and stumbled to his feet again. This time, he didn't hold back at all, quite literally screaming at the fighting 'brothers'. "STOP!"

((I thought it at first too, but then I decided elsewhere. I would rather face as well, so I'll go ahead and fix it to put that. ))

Welk and Cynyr both froze at his shout, quickly separating. They were breathing hard, and they had inflicted several bleeding wounds on each other. They glared at each other, hatred seething in their gazes, then Welk blinked out of it and looked over at Werr. His lip curled, and he turned back to Cynyr, saying "Look what you did!"

"What I did?! You're the one that kicked me!" Cynyr yowled angrily.

"This is all your fault!" Welk shouted, transforming into a human. "What are you trying to prove by being out here and doing all of this training?! What does it help?!"

"I-" Cynyr started, but Welk cut him off. "You nothing!" he snapped. "Everything is always you, you, you! Have you ever thought of someone else in your whole life?! Storming off and being alone is not the answer to everything! We're all in this together now, whether you like it or not. For once, you have to think of someone else-"

"You think I've never cared about anyone but myself?!" Cynyr screamed, silencing Welk instantly. "If I didn't care about anyone, I would have left you to DIE when I first found you! If I didn't care about anyone, I would've let that bear kill you and Werr! Don't you dare tell me I've never cared for anyone but myself! You don't know the things I've lost because I CARED!!" By the time Cynyr was finished, he had transformed into a human and had his arms wrapped around himself, digging his claws into his skin. He closed his eyes, unable to look at them, not saying anything.

((And to add to my evilness, I think I may spawn soldiers and sniffer dogs soon. 'Cuz I can. 83))

'You left a very 'caring' mark on my face,' Werr thought silently, knowing that the claw marks would be scars, and they wouldn't leave for awhile. He pushed such thoughts away, though; no need to turn Cynynr against himself. The half-cat could do much worse than leave a couple scars. Werr was still fuming with anger about it, though, not to mention sickened by the blood, so he refused to say anything until he could bottle up said emotion. That, and he thought he might throw up if he dared open his mouth. His blood had that effect on him.

Airlia peeked around her tree, biting her lip nervously. Was the master okay? Did he need water? Remembering that her old master had always demanded a drink after being angry, Airlia figured this was fairly the same. She got up and flew off to find a water source, and maybe take a bucket from the nearest town. Yes, a bucket would help...

((That's evil. Works pretty good with what's getting ready to happen. Because all of this anger/tension stuff is all leading up to Cynyr having a break down, which was then lead to what's under his mask.))

Welk's jaw had dropped open at Cynyr's words. He stared in shock at his brother, his ears flat back against his head.

Cynyr backed up a pace, not meeting anyone's gaze. He was still fuming with anger, but that was now mixed with a feeling he thought he had buried years ago; regret. He hadn't meant to hurt Werr. It was an accident. He didn't want to hurt the teenager. He wasn't like that. He wasn't like...them. A pang of pure terror shot through him. Was he becoming like them? Was he turning into the one thing he feared the most? Was that why this was happening? His fear and anger overwhelmed him, and he transformed into a panther, then turned and fled.

It was better this way, after all.

Welk stared after his brother as Cynyr ran away. He wasn't sure if he wanted Cynyr to go or if he wanted to start crying and beg him to stay. By the time he made up his mind, Cynyr was already gone. Welk seemed a little distant as he walked over to Werr and reached up to lightly touch his wounds. When Werr winced, the half-cat frowned. "I'm sorry." he said, hanging his head. "This is Cynyr's fault."

((Bwahaha. Let there be soldiers, then. Next post, possibly. Dramatic speech here. xDDD))

Werr was silent for a few more moments. He wanted to blame Cynyr for what happened, indeed, but... "No, I should have kept a little more distance...and it was between you two, I shouldn't have intervened. I just...you guys say you're brothers, right? I just...it's kinda hard to see how that can be the truth. I know it's not the truth anyways, but...I dunno. You two have been together all this time, I can't help but think that none of this would have happened if I hadn't fallen out of that tree..." He was quiet for a moment more, then asked, "Should we...go after him?"

Welk frowned, then glanced over his shoulder worriedly. He and Cynyr had never fought this badly before. They had had spats, of course, but never anything of this magnitude. It was like Cynyr was changing, becoming more and more distant. Why was he doing this? Welk sighed, then said "It wasn't your fault, Werr. None of this was your fault." He hugged Werr, not knowing what else to do and, frankly, needing a bit of comfort. He sighed, pressing his face against Werr's chest, then said "I think we should go after Cynyr. He'll probably get himself killed if we don't go after him."

"Still..." Werr sighed a bit, patting his friend's back. "Let's go, then." He helped Welk to his feet, wiping blood off of his face for a moment. He hardly took one step in the direction Cynyr had gone in before a shriek rose up above the trees, sending birds scattering in the late afternoon sky.

"What the--" Werr turned in time to see Airlia barreling into Welk, nearly knocking the poor half-cat over. Before Werr could blink, though, the winged girl was behind the both of them, trembling horribly.

"Soldiers! With wolves and everything! I saw them, the soldiers and wolves are working together!" She had her hands over her head, a half-spilled bucket of water hooked around her elbow.

Welk had stumbled backwards under the sudden weight of Airlia slamming into him, but he managed to right himself. "Soldiers?!" he gasped, glancing around. He sniffed the air, then growled. "Dang it, she's right. Soldiers, and lots of them. They have dogs too. This is bad." His eyes were wide with fear, and his tail was fluffed out behind him. "Forget Cynyr, we need to get out of here!" he said, tugging on Werr's arm. "Besides, they're probably after Cynyr because he's a mage. I know he can avoid them. At least, I think he can. So we need to go!"