The three of them found themselves before a narrow, dirty front, a lonely bright square of white in the barely lit street. The tall, dark-skinned girl took point, guiding the troupe inside of the incredibly cramped pizzeria and saluting the tired looking man behind the plywood counter:

"Evening boss, can I get-uh... medium farmer, a large meat-lover and-uh..." she turned towards the hooded figure.
"What do you like ? I'm covering."

"Oh, uh... I'll get a small three-cheeses, I guess." they mumbled awkwardly.

"...And a medium three cheeses, boss-man~."

Before their protestations could leave their throat, the braided girl had already pulled out a scratched up wallet and was handing a couple of bills over.

"Got meat, right ?" asked the small, poofy-haired girl while pulling on Gaëlle's sleeve.

"Yes, don't worry, all the meats."

She raised her tiny fist in victory while Gaëlle waved Sed over to the table placed deepest in this narrow but long shop.

"Cool place." they remarked, taking a seat.

"Discreet. Also cheap and tasty ! I love neighborhood shops like this one." She sat opposite to them, her back to the door. They were the only customers, appart from a handful of food delivery workers stationed in the street, waiting to jump on their bycicles and scooters. Sed kept an eye on the entrance and the counter, but the employee was busy answering phone calls and writing up orders on the computer.

"Busier that it looks." They pulled back their hood but still kept their beanie on, and sat a bit deeper in the cold metal chair, still not quite relaxed.

"Yeah, I suppose. We might have to wait a bit." Gaëlle sighed deeply, the conversation dying down. Next to her, her small companion had taken to mindlessly chew on what used to be a pencil, pulled out of her pocket. None of them quite knew where to pick-up from there.

After running through the woods, they were barely able to catch the last bus back to the city, where they sat in silence, attracting confused looks from the few others riding that late. The three of them were a strange sight:
A distractingly tall young black woman dressed in just a plaid shirt, opened on a sports bra, and tight jeans, in winter;
A scruffy, dirty individual, buried in multiple layers of clothing and wearing a hood and a beanie, who looked like they spent the last week sleeping on the street;
And a girl who looked no older than 13, with wild hair and eyes, her childish clothes ripped and muddy. Sed worried the whole ride that someone would call the police for a kidnapping or something of the kind.

If they only knew.

"Ok, what the fuck is up with the eyes, dude ?" Gaëlle finally let out.

"What ?" they stopped fidgeting, focusing their attention on her.

"I mean, they're normal now, but they were super creepy when we met, like glowing and shit."

"I mean... I'm not sure how to explain it... I just focus and..." They rubbed their eyes, as if they were trying to stay awake, before looking back up at Gaëlle, eyes of the owl gaze of the night hunting and stalking and-

"...Voilà, I can see in the dark, although I can't really see colours." They winced under the artificial lights of the shop.

Gaëlle shivered while the pencil chewing accelerated, a growl mounting in a small throat.

"Fuck ! That's freaky. I can't do that. Does it hurt or something ?"

"Uh, no ? Not really. Light is pretty blinding though." They rubbed their eyes again, blinking a couple times as though trying to get rid of a dust or hair stuck, the glow disappearing suddenly.

"'Cause it hurts to look at. Well, not hurts hurt, but like, existencial hurt." she corrected while shifting in her seat, smiling.

"...Well, that's the worst kind, right ?" Sed let out through a confused grin.

Gaëlle whipped her head back and let out a short but powerful laugh, the tension escaping through her bright, wide open smile.
"-Sorry-, no-yeah, it sure is." She took a moment to settle her breath, still half-giggling:
"Any~way, what else can you do ?"

"I mean... turn into a wolf ? Apparently ? And other, wolf-like stuff, I guess."

"Sure, well, we all can, but I can't do that with my eyes."

"Uh... Ok ? So you're saying that this is like... a me special ? That... doesn't really make sense-" they furrowed their eyebrows "-except if maybe those are different, like, strains, or... different stages of development ?" they mumbled under their breath.

"Wha- Sorry ? Whaddya say ? Strains ?" She scoffs.

"... You sure you can't do that ?"

"Well, as far as I'm aware, like I said before, I've been experimenting. Actually, me and Gutsy here, we-"

"Gutsy ?" Sed furrowed their eyebrows, taken aback.

"Well, yeah, her name's so long she deserves a diminutive, right ?" She turned to the concerned party.

"Don't mind 'cause is cute." Gutsy admitted in an equal tone.

Gaëlle ruffled the small girl's hair while flashing another bright smile, making the pink-clothed silhouette growl unconvincingly.

"Anyway, as I was saying, what we know so far, is that we seem to both be able to shift into different forms, but, like, I think we were just scratching the surface. Some stuff comes easier to her than me, though."

Gutsy nodded slowly:
"I'm the mighti-est."

"Yeah, I'm not challenging that~." sighed Gaëlle.

"I won't either." assured Sed, a little too fast.
"What about you, then ? What's your thing ?"

"Hey, listen, I can sing pretty well, I can play a bunch of instruments, and I'm not half bad at writing lyrics, if I can be so bold. That counts for something. I think." she said with half-cheeky, half-awkward smile.

"... Okay. Is that, like, new, or... related ?"

She let out a frustrated sigh:
"Hopefully not." She mulled over something, eyes looking away, before noticing that Sed was still staring.
"What ? I'm new to all this, remember ?"

"Yeah, me too." they answered with a scowl.

A tense silence followed, filled only with the buzzing of the artificial lights and the fast-talking of the employee on the phone. His voice echoed slightly on the white-tiled walls and floors, making it seem more distant and dream-like. The poofy-haired girl's teeth grinded against the wooden pencil in a slightly wet, goopy noise.

"Hun-gry." she declared, frustrated.

"I know, just a bit more patience, it shouldn't take too much longer." the tall, dark girl answered, taking a softer voice.

"... So how-uh... how did you guys meet ?" asked Sed after clearing their throat.

"Ah, right. We kinda ran into each other in the forest, a couple nights ago. Well, more like I ran into her. Bleeding and barely conscious."

"You should have seen the other guys." said the wild girl in a low and slow recitation, almost savouring the flavour of a ritualistic sentence, as if she did not understand the words that composed it, all while baring her teeth in another carnivorous smile that only used her mouth.

"You-... You learn way too quick. But yeah, I saw her shift in front of me, so I knew I had to help her, and probably not go to a hospital. She got better, although she was stuck as a human for a bit. Apparently, if you push too hard, you can't do stuff for a while."

"That was ANNOYING !" the small girl yelled out, hitting her palms on the table.

"Come on now, you started enjoying it by the end !" cackled Gaëlle.

"No I didn't !" she answered, pouting.

"Alright, whatever you say~. But yeah, basically I teach her about human stuff, and she teaches me about wolf stuff, that's kinda our deal."

"Wait wait wait, so you are, like, an actual wolf ?" asked Sed in disbelief.

"Well, yeah, like I said-"

Gaëlle is cut off by a small hand suddenly raised up.
"I talk now."

The braided, side-shaven girl took a contrite face and raised both of her hands while sitting back, leaving litteral and abstract space to talk.

Gut-the-Despoilers-and-Burn-their-Thrones took a deep breath, before finding Sed's gaze with hers:

"Was still a pup when pack left territory where I was born. I... was smaller than now, but big enough to move with pack. One of us, uh-" She growled in frustration, not able to quite find the words. "-he knew about a place far but with lots of space and prey. We traveled for a long time. Me and litter-mates got bigger, but we did not find good territory. Some packmates left, some died... Last time Luna hid, pack decided to hunt close from here. Stayed some nights, until Luna high and bright. That night... When we met..."

The silence floated for a couple seconds, enough time for Sed to unclench their jaw from the reference to the new moon. Gaëlle was looking unusually despondent, clearly not hearing this for the first time.

"Pack was out hunting. Ran into some humans, killed most of the pack. I... was hurt and so so so so so mad and can't do anything... After that... not sure." She pauses, stone-faced.
"But they are all dead. Ripped apart. Their den destroyed."

"What ?" released Sed in a half whisper. They couldn't help but grasp their head with both of their hands, the weight of a black mass pouring itself in their stomach.
"Fuck."

"There you go, enjoy." The flat voice of the employee almost made Sed's heart miss a beat, as he put down three trays with their orders. The small, wild monster, just like you-girl kept her gaze fixed on their huddled, shivering shape, while Gaëlle nodded towards the employee who was already walking back to his station.

"They deserved it." she said, monotone, before grabbing a slice of pizza ladened with ground beef, sausage and bacon with one hand, stuffing it messily in her mouth while she used her other hand to gather her packets of spicy oil and plop them down on her neighbour's tray.

"Thank you~." whispered Gaëlle from the tip of her lips. She ripped one of the packets open, slathering her meal in orange-ish liquid.

"That's- That's not... We can have that conversation another time." They clear their throat, trying desperately to compartmentalize the information they were just given.
"But you're telling me there's just, a pile of gore somewhere in the forest that tracks directly to you ?" Sed blew out, still trying to keep their voice at a discreet level, not successfully.

"Actually, if I may-" Gaëlle, still working on covering her pizza in a sea of spice, cast a gaze over to the small girl stuffing food in her maw, who nodded.
"I checked it out the next day. I'm not sure what happened, but from what she told me and what I saw, the whole thing happened on a farm, where her pack had been hunting on the cattle for a couple nights. And the farmer, instead of telling anybody about a fucking wolf pack in the middle of Brittany preying on his flock, decided to go all medieval and called a couple of his buddies to try and ambush a group of a protected species, that has barely been observed in the wild around here, basically since it was first exterminated almost to extinction centuries ago." She paused, about to raise her hand up to her face in frustration but remembering at the last second that it was dripping with stuff one would not want in their eyes. She settled on a sigh and a shrug.
"Anyway, I'm not sure why but the whole farm compound caught fire. There didn't seem to be much attention from authorities so far, there were just a couple gendarmes and firefigters digging through the rubble. I'm gonna keep an eye out, but it might just blow over." Laying down the last empty sauce packet, she carried a slice up to her mouth, now hopefully to her taste.

"... Fu~ckin' hell... Alright, alright." Sed whispered while massaging their temples.

"You should probably eat something, dude. Helps the nerves." she sputtered back through a mouthful of oily cheese, chicken and dough.

"... You guys really have no idea what you're doing, huh ? This is bad." Although still picking up a slice and folding it in their hands.

"Didn't you say something similar happened with you ?"

"Yes, and-I-took-care-of-it." they sent through their teeth. "Don't mention it again."

"Listen, the last couple weeks have been absurd and terrifying, so maybe you could take it down a notch on the castigation of us sinners here, alright ?"

She chewed on her food silently, letting Sed cool down for a second, who looked down to their food. They started to dig into the slice as if they had to inhale it before it disappeared, then did the same with another, and another. Soon, they already were attacking the second half of their meal with no slowing down.

"... So ? What are you planning to do now ?" She cast an inquisitive eye towards them.

"... This whole thing has created more questions than anything. Also, I'm still not sure if I want to get involved with you two."

Gaëlle took on a shocked expression, bringing her hand up to a imaginary pearl necklace.
"Oh my, how dare you ! I am po-si-ti-ve-ly scandalized !" She grinned.
"Well, can't blame you really... However, we've been so good as to share a lot about what we know, so you could at least explain a couple things. You said earlier we were your "best lead", and mentioned some company, can't remember the name of it. What was that about ?"

Sed grimaced, although it had nothing to do with the quality of the food.
"You don't miss much, do you." They sat back, crossing their arms in a futile attempt to escape the situation. Finally, they settled:
"I am looking for someone. "That" company has something to do with it for sure. The... individual I had... an "encounter" with was my best in. Now I lost that lead, and it seems I'm involved with something much more dangerous than a simple disappearance." They stopped to look at the other two, and sighed.
"We all are."

---

"Well ? Spit it out, fatty !"

The woman was so close that Idris could see the detail of her thick make-up, the deep red of her slightly smudged lipstick, smell the alcohol and cigarette on her breath.

"Liv, I, I... I don't have-"

His breath crashed out of his lungs as she punched him in the gut, and he fell to the cold, piss-smelling concrete of the tower's hall, his cheek rubbing on the unnervingly sticky surface as he laid there on his knees, unable to breath.

"Li-Li-Li-Liv, p-p-please d-d-don't p-p-punch meeee." a mocking voice sounded out, imitating a pleading tone.
"You know it tuuurns meee ooon." it carried on, drawing a couple laughs from the group surrounding the rotund young man who was struggling on the floor. Liv, however, was not laughing.

"Shut the fuck up you cunts !" she hissed, surrounded by a wave of amused whispers at her reaction, but the mocking stopped.

"So-" she crouched down to his face "-you fuckin' around with me, little piggy ?"

"N-no Liv, I'm not, I'm really not-" he was barely able to let out before her boot struck him in the groin, sending him reeling under a cacophony of laughs and jeers. He could hear his blood pulsing through his temples, a rhythm of drums calling his body to tense and enact its will upon his enemy and turning his hands into weapons to rip into flesh and-

"Oi ! Whaddya doin' on this floor, Liv ? Got lost ?"

The voice coming from the end of the hallway cut through Idris' daze, and he breathed in relief as Liv's attention was shifting to the interloping figure.

"Fuck off, Alias ! This is none of ya fuckin' business !" she yelled while swiping her arm through the air. Alias though, didn't seem to mind. His mouth formed into his usual shit-eating grin, as Idris, still on the floor, felt his face heat up a little.

"Come on, Liv, you know you're not supposed to be here. You wouldn't want me to wake up Mrs Broomstick, would'ya ?" he snarked, dripping with false friendliness. He gave a quick glance towards the rotund silhouette still hugging the cold floor, who stood up quicker than he should, almost tripping while doing so.

"You think I care ? What, you think I'm scared of the old bat or somethin' ?" That sneer attracts a couple laughs from the handful of cronies surrounding her, mocking and jeering, while she herself quickly turned back towards her target and pinned him against the wall with her forearm pressing his throat. Idris felt his eyes and lungs starting to burn as the iron-grip was suffocating.

"Who said who could get up, bitch ?"

He could only gurgle in response, his hands grabbing onto her forearm in a futile attempt to push it back. He simply was not strong enough.

"Welp, I guess we're doing this then !" Alias said gingerly, reaching out his arm to the door next to him and knocking politely. His earrings glistened softly under the cathodic light as he then walked a few steps back to wait for an answer.

"Oi, what the fuck did you just do, you bag of shit ?" Her voice was stripped of all of it's bravado, leaving only anger and a slight shaking. Idris felt the pressure subside a little, letting him gasp for air.

"Hmm ? Oh you know how she likes knowing what goes on her floor, especially if it wakes her up after midnight." His grin faded for a moment into a more pensive expression.
"Ah, of course, grannie's getting a bit hard on the leaf, isn't she ?" he said as if he just resolved a particularly hard math problem, all the while reaching his hand towards the doorbell...

"I swear on your little chicken-ass neck, if you touch that I'll fucking wring it dr-AH PUTAIN !!" she screeched, pulling back her bloodied arm to her chest.

A moment of stunned silence followed, as her whole posse pushed each other to look down at her arm, then up at the rotund young man that dashed down the hallway to Alias' side.

Idris looked down at his own hands, his short round nails covered in red ichor and stuffed with bits of skin, a trail of droplets linking them directly to the profusely bleeding arm. He could still feel the warmth that radiated up his fingers when he drove them into the flesh of-

"IMMA GUT YA AND USE YOUR CORPSE AS A FUCKING SHITBAG YOU-"

A high pitch ringing interrupted her stride, as Alias pressed the doorbell frenetically, his own cocky demeanour vanished for pure tension. One of Liv's thugs kept walking towards them, but even he stopped when shuffling noises could be heard from behind the door. He shot a nervous gaze back to Liv, who scowled, shaking with hatred, eyes wide with almost feral rage... But not enough to face the dragon.

"I know where you live, piggy." she spat while turning tail with her group towards the stairs, dripping red all the way. A moment later and they were all gone from sight.

Idris felt his eyes burning, his body shaking, as the relief washed over him. He couldn't cry, not now, not after all this, not in front of him.

"...Thank fuck... thank you, man-"

"We have to go. Now." Alias cut him short while grabbing onto his shoulder.
"I really don't want to get shot here, cuz. Or anywhere." He started pulling Idris behind him while running down the hallway opposite to the stairs.

"Wait frère, it's a dead end that way !" Idris yelped out, his heart racing and his breath choppy.

"Can't take the stairs, cuz, they're gonna wait for us. Gotta take the shortcut !" the taller man answered, sounds of metallic shaka-shaka-shaka coming from his backpack as he ran all the way to the guardrail at the end of the hallway, only barrier now between him and a fall four stories down the side of the building. He stopped at this opening in the brutalist concrete building, open to the elements, and look down.
"Gotta climb down, poto." he grinned back at his friend.

"Oh shit oh fuck, fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck" the rotund twenty-something whimpered, nervously grabbing onto his glasses with shaky hands as his savior deftly climbed over the railing and quickly moved down to the floor below, his feet resting on the top of the guardrail there, his hands grabbing onto the edge of the floor Idris was too scared to lift his legs off of.

"Come on cuz, you've seen me do this so many times, you've basically done it before." The calm voice did not betray the urgency felt in this moment, focused on trying to get Idris moving.

"What the fuck man, that's not how it works at all !"

Click.

His head whipped back so fast that he would feel sore for the next couple days, but no-one was standing behind him, the clacking intensifying as someone was clearly struggling to unlock the appartment three doors down, where Alias had pressed the doorbell.

"Hurry. No sweat, I'm right there with ya." A hand beckoned him from below.

Trembling and whimpering, he passed one of his legs over the railing. Suddenly, the void called to him as he couldn't help but stare down, white knuckles frozen on the bar, his breathing rapid and hoarse.

"Come on, almost there, you're doing it !" Alias cheered on, his voice taking a more urgent tone.

Clack-clack.

The bells of hell resonated in the form of an unlocked door, a bleating voice the angel of apocalypse.

Even the flapping of slippers on the concrete was unable to make him move from his statue-like rigidity of certain doom.

"You little rat-bastards !"

Idris could barely perceive a shambling form in a night-gown and bonnet before a flash closed his eyes- a concerto of ting-ting from the railing unheard under the BOOM that sent him reflexively springing back- into the void.

Twist. Empty. Heart to the throat. Up and down. Down and up.

Standing in the stomped grass, Idris was staring at his fingers, still slick with blood.

"Cuz !"

Not his own.

"Fuck ! Are you good ?!"

He mindlessly thought of how he couldn't even get a grip on the wrapping tape of carboard boxes with those blunt nails. Those nails now stuffed with ripped skin, so much so that he could feel the pressure on his fingers.

"Oi !" A hand clawed his shoulder into a vice-grip. The pain startled him.

"You good !?" Alias stared right into his eyes, a deep dark gaze worriedly scanning into his confused hazel. He felt the fire coming back up his cheek.

Surprisingly, they didn't look down to him- no more than usual. Idris realized he was standing.

"Uh. What ? What happened ?"

"Ah shiii- did you hit your head ?"

"No-no-no, I don't think so- I do remember, falling, I think. I don't remember standing up. But I-" He stuttered, and stopped. He wasn't having any vertigo, or pain. He felt weirdly clear, in fact. He suddenly was invaded by disappointment- if Alias was here next to him, that meant that he missed him climbing down, in urgency maybe even- Damn, what a waste, the cocky writer always looked so comfortable stretching his muscle to pull his weight around-

"Holy shit, are you a secret badass or something ? Clawing your way through Liv, and then surviving a four story drop like- damn, man. I'm impressed."

"No I'm just lucky I think !" He yelped as his... thought process was broken, probably for the best.

"Lucky is fucking right !" Alias cackled with a slap to his shoulder.
"Come one, let's get the hell out of here, cuz !"

"Yeah !" Idris jogged behind his saviour, suddenly reminded that he was covered in drying mud, and now blood. He shivered and tears started to burn at his eyes. When will this weird, shitty, horrible, no good night end ?

Alias' bag still resonates with the sound of half-empty paint cans as they passed by a neighbouring tower, then another. A simple question came through Idris' mind as he quickly lost his breath, having trouble keeping up with the lean machine of his companion.

"Why- the hell- are you here- man ?"

A smile shot back at him over a shoulder, peeking from under dark fingercurls. The wide stride slowed down, then stopped.

"Fate, cuz."

"Sh-shut up man. For real." Thankfully he could pass the stutter for being out of breath, not because his heart was going wild beyond the cardio.

"For real. Was here for a piece. Inspired, cuz. But I passed by yours for no particular reason. Here." He led the thicker-set secret badass around a corner of the closest tower.

Idris looked up, following the pointed finger. His eyes went wide, and he took it all in.

"...Inspired ?"

"There's change in the air, Id. I can feel it." He shot another smile, but this one wasn't all cocksure. It was a little scared, too.

It felt wrong. Alias didn't get fucking scared.

Idris swallowed and tried to ignore it.
"Not, not your usual style- blockbuster, heh."

"Think some gonna be disappointed ?" There we go, that's the grin we wanted to see.

"Maybe, but... fuck 'em, cuz." That was let out with confidence that Idris definitely didn't have.

"There we fuckin' go, secret badass !" An arm wrapped around a set of shoulders, and Idris was smothered in the smell of sweat, plastic and acrylic paint. He smiled sheepishly, and looked back up, the fear kept at bay, but only just.

On the wall, roller-painted in red and yellow, in an imposing lettering, one could read:

SOMETHING MESSY

IS GOING TO HAPPEN

TERRIBLE

NECESSARY

SAD

BEAUTIFUL