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Impudent beasts , my Tirian growled, pausing for a moment as we dropped our head down and prowled along the rock crusher’s back.

It shifted under us, but its lumpen body made it difficult to do much.

We snarled a warning to Fluffaggedon, but they paid us little mind, meeping their disdain right up until our jaws closed around one of them.

I felt bad, somewhere in the recesses of our shared mind.

Their fur felt just as silky on our gums as it had on our skin as we shook our head, whipping the little needle toothed bastard back and forth before sending it sailing through the air.

The prolonged sound of its mournful meep as it flew past was, I admit, satisfying.

I imagined our open-mouthed skulk looked pretty bloody badass, if the rapid retreat of the purples was anything to go by.

The rock crusher roared its frustration at us, but apart from some impotent stiff-backed bucks, it was nothing to worry about.

I should have been worried about it.

The purples rose in a flock, back-winging in what I thought was recognition of our physical superiority. The meeping fell silent as they flew higher and higher.

Looks like we showed them , I said. The rock crusher began crooning this weird arse dirge I could feel all the way from my paws to my ears.

The resonance of those powerful lungs pumping air through massive vocal cords could be felt throughout the surrounding area.

The purples hovered where they were, their reedy meeps a curious counterpoint to the crusher’s song.

Oh no, this is a female.

What does that ? —

I didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence, nor prepare myself for what was to come, because there was no way to anticipate it.

My Tirian’s head swung around, as if searching for a place to jump, but we needn’t have bothered.

Like the stereotypical representations of ‘wall of noise’ heavy metal bands in music clips, the rock crusher hit some kind of uber note, and the sound acted like a physical wave, shoving us up and off the beast’s back.

The world was a terrifying blur, spinning as we sailed past, before we came crashing down with a thud.

Fuck! I yelped as pain stabbed through my body, my jaws open and desperately trying to suck air into winded lungs.

We scrabbled in the dirt, attempting to right ourselves, get back on four paws, but our bruised and battered limbs struggled to obey. That’s when the rock crusher turned. Flanked by its meeping cloud of doom, the beast took one ponderous step towards us, then another.

I must shift , my Tirian said.

No! Don’t leave me with this bastard thing!

I must.

I didn’t get a chance to argue further as I unceremoniously emerged on the grass.

My arms and legs shook as I shoved myself upright, only to wobble when I did so.

The rock crusher paused, opened its mouth, and belched out a foul-smelling note that had me floundering back and smacking into thin tree trunks.

Then I was shifted back into Tirian form, my view of things considerably lower and no better for the change.

I could see every one of the bloody animal’s teeth and the beady eyes of those bloody purples.

I didn’t spend any more time dwelling on this, I finally did what I’d always thought was the wisest choice—I ran.

We leapt from a standing start, ran into the bush, over rocks, and burst through bushes. Smaller animals and birds skittered and flittered out of our path as we ran, but we got little chance to dwell. The rock crusher was slow and ponderous, but it had a stride that was far longer than mine.

Where are we going? What if we’re going deeper into the scrub where there’s more of these things?

Feel, she replied, quick and clipped . Reach for them.

Fuck, everyone kept asking me to reach for obscure psychic bonds with little to no preparation.

I took a deep metaphorical breath—it wasn’t me who was directing our now pumping lungs—and tried to shut out the insane rush before me.

It came reluctantly, that dark internal landscape with its sullen black sun.

It was the place we always came to when we joined spiritually, so I assumed this is what she had meant about reaching for the guys.

“Hello?” My voice felt curiously flat, like this place did not have the physical capability to transmit sound and what I was doing was somehow an affront to this reality. I frowned, wondering what the fuck I was supposed to do.

“It’s OK, Jules. I’ve got you, now reach for it,” Brandon told me as our bodies entwined.

I dunno if I’d describe what I did as reaching.

It felt more like my consciousness spread thinner and thinner, filling the endless barren landscape within us, fusing with the air, seeping into the earth.

I poured the crazy shit I’d stumbled upon into the mix, the fear, the stupid, the ridiculousness of it all, then it hit.

I was bowled over by a great tumbling mass of fear and confusion, flashes of memories and viewpoints, slashes of anger and recrimination, incoherent shouts all smashing into me like blows.

I opened my eyes and saw I was back in my beast’s body and we were arrowing towards the campsite, the cars just visible through the gaps in the trees, but so was the rock crusher.

We were labouring, my breath harsh and ragged in my chest while the bloody lizard seemed to be powering on, its progress fuelled by some kind of naturally occurring combustion engine.

Close , she said as we forced our legs on, stabbing our paws into the earth and sailing forward in mechanical rather than fluid movements.

“Fucking hell!” Aaron said as we burst out as he and his men all moved like well-oiled machines into formation, rifles swept off backs and into arms. Eyes looked down sights, but he called out, “That’s Jules! Do not shoot until she’s out of range!”

But his order was ignored by one. Finn stepped free of the cars, rifle on his shoulder.

He found the target, put his finger on the trigger, and then squeezed.

The rock crusher’s bellow flattened me to the ground, its screams clawing at my ears as I lay there, breath rasping in and out.

I heard a chorus of meeps, felt the flutter of their wings as they tried to settle on me, their modus operandi apparent now.

The placid rock crusher was the muscle, and they, the carrion eaters that cleaned up after it.

A few quick shots that whistled above my head had them rethinking their life choices.

Both lots of monsters appeared to feel a retreat was strategic, if the sound of the rock crusher’s footsteps were to be trusted.

“Oh god,” I groaned, realising I’d reverted back to human form.

“Jules…!” Brandon had rushed to my side, and was whipping off his shirt and placing it over my now apparently naked human flesh. “Oh my god, what the fuck happened?”

“Where the hell were you?!” Slade shouted at Finn.

I didn’t get a chance to hear the answer, using what muscle strength I had to look up at Brandon as he shuffled in and rested my head on his lap.

Slade barrelled up to a wide-eyed Finn, still holding his rifle in somewhat limp fingers.

He didn’t answer, obviously processing what happened.

That wasn’t good enough for Slade. He had his fist pulled back in one second, and drove it into the side of Finn’s face in the next, man and gun going flying.

He stood over the fallen man, chest heaving.

“You were supposed to fucking make sure she was safe! What the fuck were you doing?”

Finn had no answer. He sat up slowly, hand going to his jaw.

“We’ve been best mates since we were kids, but fuck me, if you don’t get your fucking head out of your arse, I’ll do my damnedest to break the mate bond myself.

This is not you, Finn! Your dads wouldn’t want you neglecting the one thing they have to live without because of them. This isn’t helping anyone.”

I struggled to get to my feet, feeling the discord as keenly as a knife to the ribs. I needed to fix it somehow. The ragged sound of Slade’s voice breaking as he delivered his judgement, Finn’s blank-eyed stare, it all tore at me.

“No,” Brandon said when I managed to sit up. I was hauled back into the shelter of his arms, his limbs wrapped around me like iron bars. “Just stay, please.”

Brandon, as always, knew what he was doing. Slade turned on his heel, his face disfigured with disgust, something that only softened when he saw me. He marched over, then dropped to his knees beside us.

“You don’t have to let her go, but I need to hold her as well,” Slade said in a low voice.

I felt Brandon nod, loosening his grip a little, sharing the burden that was me between the two of them.

“You better not tell me you’ve got a shy bladder, princess, because I am gonna be on you like white on rice.

Taking a piss, even a dump, I am there.”

“Slade…” I gasped, both of them feeling a bit oppressive as my head started to swim.

“We’ve gotcha, love. We’ve gotcha.”

And that seemed as good a time as any to pass out.